Pieces
by Kyra4
Summary: Can the same person who broke you into pieces, be the person to put you back together again?
1. Chapter 1

**Standard Start-of-Fic Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters depicted herein, and receive no compensation for writing works of fanfiction except possibly some nice reviews. Or, considering the not-so-nice subject matter of this particular fic, possibly some not-so-nice reviews!**

**A/N: This is a fic I wrote for the most recent dmhgficexchange. As such it is already complete and I will be posting a chapter every Friday until all chapters are up. It's a 5-chapter fic. It was written to fulfill some very specific criteria that were given to me at the start of the exchange by the person who requested the fic. I'll post those criteria at the end of the final chapter and let you be the judge of how good a job I did in meeting them. Time for WARNINGS: This is a VERY DARK fic that starts out angsty from the first sentence and never gets any lighter. I gave it the highest allowable rating for language, mature/dark themes, and dark/difficult subject matter including captivity, torture, (non-graphic) rape, emotional duress, and character death. Consider yourself duly warned. And so, onto the fic...**

OoOoO

Things would have been so different if she'd only yelled for help sooner... but of course, she didn't; and what happened, happened.

She hadn't wanted to admit that she _needed _help; that she was in over her head. Hermione Granger was not supposed to _get_ in over her head, ever, in _any_ circumstances, because nothing was supposed to_ be_ over her head. She was supposed to be equal to anything. Yelling for help would have been an admission that she wasn't. And she'd been unwilling to make that admission, particularly because she and Ron had had an unusually volatile argument about just that subject, only the night before.

He'd wanted her to stay out of the battle; had even gone so far as to suggest that she "stick to what she was good at" and stay indoors researching different strategies and battle tactics while he and Harry - and everyone else who was dear to her, for that matter - were out actually _fighting_ for what they believed in.

It had been an utterly unacceptable suggestion, as she had told him in no uncertain terms. Being sure to remind him, for good measure, that the engagement ring he'd slipped onto her finger barely a week earlier - it had been his 19th birthday present to her - was supposed be a token of mutual love and _respect,_ not some medieval symbol of ownership and if he thought it meant he could just order her about however he saw fit then he had another think _coming,_ thank you very _much_, Ronald _Weasley!_

To add insult to injury, for just a moment there it had appeared that Harry had been on the verge of joining their little "discussion" - and from the look on his face, _not_ in support of Hermione. She'd sent such a purely withering look his way, however, that he'd quite suddenly seemed to remember some pressing bit of business in another room.

It had made for a horrible night, particularly with the specter of the battle they all knew was coming, hanging over their collective heads. She'd barely slept a wink. And her temperament hadn't improved any when, just before the fighting had actually begun, Ron had exhorted her to "at least stay close to me, Hermione, for God's sake, _please!_"

Those words from her fiancé, though well-intentioned and born of great love and great fear, might as well have sealed her fate. The battle had barely begun before she'd struck off on her own - not so far from "her boys" that she couldn't keep them in sight, and vice-versa - but far enough to send a definite message about her independence and capability to look after herself. Yes, far enough.

And even when she'd begun to founder, and Harry and Ron had been so beset from all sides that they hadn't immediately noticed, even _then_ she just hadn't been able to bring herself to shout. Her pride got in the way; her half-formed cry stuck fast in her throat. By the time she _did_ cry out, it was as good as over; she was surrounded, her wand blasted from her hand, and one of her assailants - she had no idea who; he was masked, as they all were - grabbed her by the hair; winding his dirty, calloused fingers through it and yanking her backward toward him, almost off her feet.

That was when she finally called attention to herself with a scream of shock and pain, which was answered seconds later by shouts from Harry and Ron, who'd finally realized - too late - the magnitude of danger she was in.

At this point she was pressed against her attacker, her back to his chest, one of his arms snaking around to hold her tight, immobile, both _her_ arms pinned uselessly to her side. She could hear Ron shouting her name, over and over again, in a voice that was breaking with panic as he and Harry tried desperately to fight their way toward her; but the area in between was a seething mass of combatants so heavily packed with both friends and foes that they were making virtually no progress at all.

She writhed and kicked as best she could, but an instant later the hand that had been fisted in her hair withdrew - only to reappear at her throat pressing a dagger hard against her skin. She gave a terrified gasp and swallowed convulsively; the blade bit into her and she could feel her blood welling up around it, trickling down to soak the collar of her shirt. There was no pain, not yet; just a spreading, sticky warmth that was horribly, horribly wrong.

Ron gave an inarticulate cry of rage and began _blasting_ a clear path toward her with his wand; employing a spell that was throwing witches and wizards into the air five and six at a time regardless of _whose_ colors they wore.

It was still too late.

She heard her captor muttering to someone nearby - something about her being a "keeper" - (_I'm not the Keeper_, she thought dazedly in her shock and confusion, _Ron is_) - and then he was asking for a portkey; "got my hands a bit full here, mate - what do you say you give us a portkey so I can go cage this pretty little bird?"

"_No!_" she screamed. "Ron! RON!" he was close now; their eyes met, for just the briefest fraction of a second; his were frantic nearly to the point of madness -

And then the ground lurched beneath her and the world spun sickeningly as her assailant activated the portkey and they both were whirled away.

OoOoO

She landed badly, thudding down hard on a dark flagstone floor. One of her arms was twisted beneath her and a bolt of pain shot through her wrist; she heard an awful, sickening crunch. Sprained, or broken? She didn't know. Either way, it hurt like a _bastard._

Still, she tried to scramble up, tried to run – but to no avail. She hadn't even gained her feet when the Death Eater struck again; a booted foot catching her hard, right in the stomach. It was a brutal impact and knocked the breath from her body, sending her sprawling back to floor. At that point she simply curled into a ball, wanting to protect herself as best she could from any further blows.

Seconds later a harsh, guttural voice rapped out the words to an incantation and both her arms were wrenched behind her back and tightly bound by magic. She screamed again as fresh agony lanced through her injured wrist, but her pained cry did not earn her any mercy.

She was being hauled to her feet then, and half-shoved, half-dragged down a dim, torchlit corridor. She had no idea where she was; much like Hogwarts, this place gave off an aura of extreme age – but _unlike_ her beloved school, the walls here practically radiated malevolence. Wherever she was, it was an evil place; evil right down to the foundation. The despair began to settle over her right then, not even a moment after she'd arrived.

The passageway was cold and dank, and like something from a nightmare it seemed to stretch on forever. Then came a flight of stone steps that seemed to _descend_ forever. Toward the bottom, she stumbled; her captor was right at her elbow and could easily have caught her, but elected instead to let her fall. He barked out a harsh, sadistic laugh as she did so.

Arms restrained behind her back, she had no way of catching herself. She tumbled down a good dozen steps or so before fetching up at the bottom, fresh agony exploding through her. That was the first time she wished for unconsciousness; for oblivion. It wouldn't be the last.

And, she didn't get her wish. At best she "grayed out" for a moment or two; then she was being hauled back to her feet. Her legs, though, would no longer support her. They buckled immediately, causing her to spill floorward once more. Her abductor grunted in annoyance and wrapped an arm hard around her waist, holding her against him and providing at least partial support as he pulled her along a new passageway that was, if possible, even darker than the previous one. There were stout wooden doors set into the stone walls on either side of this corridor; each door had a small, iron-barred window set into it at roughly eye level. Hermione realized she was looking at cells... she was in a dungeon.

No sooner had she realized this than the Death Eater stopped in front of a door chosen seemingly at random, peered through the tiny, crude window that had been hacked into the wood, gave another grunt - this time of satisfaction - and shouldered open the door. The room inside was stone from floor to ceiling, unlit, and bare except for a thin, narrow, soiled mattress in the far corner.

She was still processing her appalling new surroundings when he forced her to move again, pulling her over to the filthy mattress and forcing her down. It wasn't until this point that Hermione (who despite her book smarts had remained, in many ways, startlingly naive) realized his true intent. _Then_ she fought like a madwoman.

Unfortunately however, given her injuries, disorientation and the fact that her arms were still bound behind her, her attacker had little difficulty in subduing her. "Now don't be shy," he told her in a mock-gentle voice, even as he bore down on her with all his weight, literally crushing her into submission, suffocating her until she could barely _breathe_, let alone struggle. Her injured arm, now pinned beneath both her own weight and his, was screaming with a near-blinding agony. "I'm going to keep you for quite a while, so we may as well get better acquainted, wouldn't you agree? Hm?"

"NO!" she half-screamed, half-sobbed as he ripped her shirt apart from collar to hem, leaving her horribly exposed, frantic to cover herself and completely helpless to do so because of her bindings.

"Mmh," he said appreciatively, taking in the curves and swells of her body, a satiny sky-blue bra the only shield now between her breasts and his eager eyes and hands. "Nice. _Very_ nice, little bird." He yanked off his mask and hood and she saw with fresh horror that this was someone she knew; someone she'd actually gone to school with - Marcus Flint, the erstwhile captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team. He leered down at her for a moment and then... _then_ his hands were everywhere at once, running up and down her body with a terrible, rough possessiveness; carelessly breaking the clasp of her bra, grabbing, squeezing, pinching, as she sobbed beneath him, so hard she could barely breathe.

"I'm going to have _months_ of fun with you," he told her hoarsely, and was just lowering his head to plant a bruising kiss at the base of her throat (which was still warm and tacky with her blood) when quite abruptly he pulled back - hissing a sharp breath in through his teeth as pain contorted his features.

"God _damn_ it," he swore, his right hand clamping hard over his left forearm, where he bore Voldemort's Dark Mark. "Shit!"

He was being summoned, Hermione realized, as he scrambled to his feet; called back to battle by his master. He stood over her just a moment more, looking severely disappointed as he yanked his mask back into place.

"Sorry, love, but duty calls," he said, crouching briefly back down beside her and catching her face in both his hands. He pulled her toward him, subjecting her to a revolting, sloppy kiss - then stood again. "Don't you worry, though... we'll pick up right where we left off, soon enough. Oh, and here -" pulling his wand from a pocket, he vanished the bindings on her arms; then strode to the door, pausing to grin back at her as he opened it. "Now you can't say I never did anything nice for you."

Then he was gone, the door thudding shut behind him. She heard him employ a complex locking spell, followed by his footsteps echoing away. For a long time she lay exactly as he'd left her, her whole body shaking hard with reaction, struggling desperately to get her breathing under control, and come to terms with where she was - with what had happened to her.

It was a losing battle. This was... was... there was no coming to terms with this.

Eventually she rolled to one side and then carefully, gingerly, pushed herself to her knees, using her good arm while cradling the hurt one against her body. She pulled her ruined shirt closed again, as best she could one-handed, and staggered to her feet.

Vertigo engulfed her almost immediately, and she fell sideways against the wall, the impact jarring her injured arm further and wrenching a cry from her lips. She almost collapsed back the floor, but managed to keep herself upright with the wall as a support. Forced herself to take a deep, bracing breath; then another, and another. Put one foot in front of the other; it was shaky but she managed it. Crossed to the door and tried it. Logically she had known it would be locked - she'd _heard_ him speaking the words of the incantation, after all - she had known she had no right to hope for anything else. So the sheer force of the despair that hit her, upon simply having her fears confirmed, caught her somewhat off guard.

She slid down the wall to the floor, there in the corner by the door, as far as she could get from the horrible, filthy mattress. Though the flagstones were freezing cold - rather damp as well - and the mattress was the only scrap of softness in the room, she wanted nothing to do with it whatsoever. Not after... after... she couldn't even articulate the thought. Just pulled her knees to her chest, dropped her face onto them, and cried, and cried, and cried. These were not the violent, body-shaking sobs of a few moments before, when he'd still been on top of her; no, these were slow, hot, stinging tears of helplessness and defeat. She cried like a child that has no understanding of how things have gone this suddenly and horrifically wrong.

Curled in a ball in the corner, she cried herself to sleep.

OoOoO

Voices in the corridor woke her, and she had just the briefest instant of a fierce, shining hope that maybe they were the voices of rescuers... of people who loved her... of Harry... of _Ron_... but no sooner was that hope kindled, than it was dashed.

She didn't know all of the voices, but she knew _one_ of them, all right... and well she should. That voice had taunted and harassed her throughout all her years of school... had driven her to tears on more than one occasion... had called her a mudblood more times than she could count. It was definitely not the voice of anyone who loved her.

It was the cold, dispassionate, drawling voice of Draco Malfoy.

" - don't _know_ who's in there, Flint just said she was looker. He was right worked up about it - probably the reason he got himself _killed_. Distracted. So being that he's no longer in any condition to enjoy her, whoever the hell she is, I thought I'd have a look. _You_ can bloody well wait out here."

"Like _hell_ we will!" This second voice was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place it. "We've got as much right to see the goods as you do, Malfoy! Share and share alike!"

"Get buggered, Zabini," Draco said in a remarkably matter-of-fact tone of voice. "I've _never_ been particularly good at sharing, and I don't plan to start now. Now let's see... what the fuck sort of spell did he _use_ on this thing? Looks like he was trying to contain a bleeding troll..."

"Maybe it IS a troll," came a third voice. "Maybe it's Bulstrode! Maybe she defected to the other side. And knowing Flint, he _migh_t have thought her a looker!"

Guffaws of laughter followed this remark, until Draco snarled, "will you shut _up!_ I'm trying to concentrate here!"

As he set to work on breaking Flint's enchantment, Hermione struggled to her feet. She was stiff with cold, and sore all over from her tumble down the steps. Her stomach hurt from the one brutal kick Flint had landed there; her injured hand was largely numb now, except for if she tried to move it all; then it shrieked pain like daggers. The shallow cut on her neck had stopped bleeding, but the collar of her wrecked shirt was stiff and black with dried blood. She backed away from the door, into a different corner of the room... though still keeping her distance from the god-awful mattress.

_Goods_, she was thinking sickly, _I'm not even a human being anymore, all I am now is the goods_...

Then there was a faint snapping sound as Flint's spell was finally vanquished... and the door swung open.

Though the light in the passageway was dim, it was still all but blinding to Hermione who'd spent, by now, several hours in the near-total darkness of the cell. The figures in the doorway - there were three of them - were backlit, so she could only see them in silhouette. She could not make out the features on any of them. Apparently, however, they had no such difficulty in recognizing her. There was a moment of silence, and then -

"You have _got_," Draco said flatly, "to be kidding me. It's fucking _Granger!_"

"Give me a minute," said one of the other two, who stood slightly behind him, "and _I'll_ be fucking Granger!"

"Nice one, Nott," said the tallest of the three - that would be Blaise, Hermione recognized him now - and the two of them snickered.

Draco, however, did not.

He simply stepped closer, raising his wand and igniting the tip with a muttered, "_Lumos_."

Hermione got her first good look at his face then, staring back at him with as much defiance as she could muster under the circumstances.

His pale eyes swept her quickly from head to toe and back again; the expression on his face appeared equal parts shock, incredulity, and... something else she couldn't quite place. His mouth had actually fallen ever so slightly open with surprise - which was, in itself, surprising. Hermione didn't know him terribly well (nor had she ever particularly _wanted_ to) but she knew him well enough to understand that this was out of character. He was usually more adept at concealing his emotions behind an impeccably smooth facade.

He didn't look particularly threatening, though, which was also surprising to Hermione... or at any rate to the inquisitive, analytical side of her nature which she could never seem to turn entirely off, even in a situation such as this.

He simply looked dumbfounded... and utterly perplexed.

Then, suddenly, his eyes narrowed and he stepped closer. Something seemed to have occurred to him. "Or are you really Granger at ALL?" he demanded. He flicked his wand at her; a quick, decisive motion. "_Finite Incantatem!_"

Apparently he'd been expecting to dispel some sort of glamour; nothing happened, of course. At that point he actually reached out and caught her chin in his hand, turning her face first this way, then that - intent to examine her, it seemed, from every angle.

"You _can't_ really be Granger," he murmured disbelievingly, "can you? Granger wouldn't get caught."

She wrenched herself away from him, pressing herself further back into the corner, yet at the same time tilting her face upward in an unmistakable show of defiance. "Get _off_ me, Malfoy," she spat, trying desperately to project a confidence, an authority, that she did not feel.

He did step back then. There was something, it seemed, that he recognized after all; something, perhaps, in the tone of her voice or the flash of her eyes.

"I'll be _goddamned_," he said.

"You already are," she rejoined, "you were _born_ that way." But her false bravado was deserting her now. Her voice was shaking; in fact, _all_ of her was shaking. Her legs felt in danger of giving way, and her eyes felt in danger of positively hemorrhaging tears. She could feel them prickling and stinging, causing her breath to hitch in her throat, they wanted so badly to flow.

"Shut up, mudblood," he said, but without any real venom. It was bizarre, but he spoke almost... _absently_. "I need to think."

"Oi! What the hell is there to think about, besides which of us gets the first go?" demanded Nott, advancing to stand beside Draco and staring at her with a lewd, hungry look that she didn't much care for at all. "Which by the way," he added a second later, "might as well be me!"

"The hell you say," Draco snapped, turning abruptly on the other boy. "Hasn't it gotten through your thick skull who this is? How fucking _important_ she is! This is a bargaining chip that should not be _thrown away!_ And you and Zabini there -" he made a curt, dismissive gesture toward the tall, dark skinned boy - "are _notorious_ for breaking your toys. So you can bloody well forget about it. This one is not for you."

"Fuck _you_, Malfoy, that's not for you to decide!" Quite suddenly, Nott and Draco were toe to toe. Hermione saw Draco's grip tighten on his wand so hard his knuckles went white - well, whiter than the rest of him, at any rate. Which was saying something.

Considering that he was very nearly glowing in the dark - his uncanny, silver-white hair in particular.

"I don't give a _shit_ who your daddy is," Nott was continuing, "_You_ don't have any more rank than _I_ do! And anyway she was _Flint's_, not yours, and I happen to know that Flint thought you were a grade-A arsehole. So bugger OFF!"

Hermione saw Draco adjust his wand, which he was now holding at roughly hip level, so that it was trained directly on Nott. Moving slowly, deliberately, not calling any attention to his actions, he angled it upward so that any spell he cast would hit the other boy squarely in the midsection. Neither Nott nor Blaise Zabini noticed. Hermione only noticed because... well, because she was Hermione.

_He's about to curse him_, she thought. Her initial reaction was shocked incredulity, but when she actually thought about it... was it so shocking after all? This wasn't Harry and Ron she was looking at. These were Death Eaters. They might serve a common cause, but there were no true bonds of fraternity or love to be found here. If there was even friendship, it ran only surface-deep. She wondered whether any of them had ever really loved _anything_ other than their own hides... were even _capable_ of love as she knew it; a love that could compel a person to acts of deep courage, selflessness and sacrifice. The kind of love she saw all the time in the Order.

She thought not.

And in truth it hardly mattered. The important thing was that Draco was about to curse Nott... and if that happened, she decided, she would make a run for it. The cell door was still standing open. Granted, all three of the young Death Eaters were positioned between it, and her - and even if she did make through that door, she knew that she would find herself in a dim, featureless passageway deep underground... with not the slightest idea of whether she should even turn left, or right. It was a very long shot. It was almost _guaranteed_ to fail. Particularly since her legs still felt like jelly and she was pretty sure that the corner she was pressed into was doing more to support her than _they_ were. But it was better than nothing.

_I have to try. Hopefully Zabini will become involved in their dispute. I might just slip by unnoticed if spells start flying. I probably won't make it even halfway across the room, but... it might be the only chance I get. I HAVE to try. God please help me, oh God PLEASE_...

She tensed up, ready to virtually launch herself at this one slim chance for freedom.

Draco drew breath, and she could see in his face that it wasn't simply in preparation to berate or insult the other boy - no, he had something else in mind, something far more sinister.

_He's going to do it_, she thought, her heart thudding loudly in her ears, _he really IS_ -

And then a new voice demanded, "What in the Dark Lord's _name_ is going on in here!"

Three more people had arrived on the scene - and for Hermione, this was not a good thing.

She hadn't even heard them approach, she'd been so focused on the scene playing out in front of her.

Amycus and Alecto Carrow now stood in the doorway of the cell, blocking most of what little light had been filtering in from the hall. And striding across the room toward her, wand held aloft and putting out a headache-inducingly brilliant glare, was none other than the elder Nott; father of the boy who was about to be blasted into the hereafter by Draco Malfoy.

Or _had been_ about to be blasted into the hereafter... this, of course, changed everything.

A sweeping wave of hopelessness crashed over her. She felt _sick_ with it in that moment. Sick with helplessness, sick with despair.

Even her long shot was gone now. It was over. _Over._

"What is the meaning of this, you two?" the elder Nott was demanding. "Draco? _Theo?_ What is going _on_ here?"

It was Blaise Zabini who answered; Draco and Nott Jr. were still too busy trying to burn holes in each other with the force of their angry glares. "Spoils of war," Blaise said, in a remarkably calm, almost amused tone of voice, gesturing toward her; the eyes of the three senior Death Eaters followed his hand, and came to rest on her for the first time. "She belonged to Flint, but Flint's not coming back. That makes her common property. But as usual, the little Malfoy princeling here doesn't want to share."

"Fuck you, Zabini," Draco practically shouted, "don't _any_ of you realize who this IS! How important she is, how _valuable!_ It's Hermione Granger, for God's sake! We've just lucked into a bargaining chip of incredible worth and I'm not going to jeopardize that just because these two -"

"Wait a minute." The elder Nott hadn't even raised his voice; nevertheless it cut through Draco's tirade like a hot knife through butter. There was a hard a edge to it that hadn't been there before. "Did you say _Hermione Granger?_" He stepped closer, peering into her face, his eyes narrowing much as Draco's had a few minutes before. It was an even less attractive expression on _his_ face than it had been on Draco's.

"Well, will you look at that," he said then, mouth splitting into horrible, sneering grin. "It most assuredly _is_. The little mudblood twat that stunned me in the Department of Mysteries. I haven't forgotten that, you uppity little cunt."

He whirled around then and strode back to the door, before pausing to address the boys. "Theo, Blaise, I want you to listen carefully. Draco is absolutely right; the mudblood is extremely valuable because of her ties to Potter and key members of the opposition. He was right to recognize her worth on the bargaining table. In the mean time, as we hammer out an agreement with the enemy, which can be a lengthy process, I'm sure she also possesses a good deal of valuable information that we would do well to... extract. So have your fun, but do no _lasting_ damage to her body or her mind. Is that perfectly clear?"

"Yes, sir," Blaise and Theo chorused in perfect schoolboy harmony. Hermione had to fight back the urge to throw up. _Not good, not good, oh this is SO not good_...

_There's nothing you can do about it_, her inner voice asserted, it's tone queerly calm; almost dead. _Go someplace else, find a memory to live in, quick, you have to do it quick, before they begin_ -

Draco was still protesting, "You don't understand, they _killed_ the last girl they -"

Again, the elder Nott cut him off. "You just _heard_ me tell them there is to be no lasting damage. I'm inclined to believe Blaise's assessment that you were simply never taught to share. I don't deny that you have as much of a stake in the girl as they do. However, for the first time in your coddled, spoilt life, Draco, your turn will be last. For the time being, you may accompany me upstairs to report on this development. _Now_."

It was obvious that Draco didn't want to go. It was equally obvious he wasn't being given a choice. "Fine," he spat out, his voice equal parts anger and disgust. "Fine." He shot Hermione one last look, intense and unfathomable all at once, then spun and made for the door, simultaneously stashing his wand away and shouldering Blaise aside with rather more force than was strictly necessary. He shoved past the two Carrows in the doorway as well, and was gone without looking back. The thuggish-looking brother and sister pair, along with the elder Nott, followed.

The door thudded shut behind them, leaving a Hermione who was so terrified and distraught that she could barely even breathe, alone with Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott.

And then things got bad.

Things got very, _very_ bad.


	2. Chapter 2

**(A/N: Sorry for not posting this on Friday as promised; Friday was a BIG event at work, the biggest event of the year in fact. But here's chapter 2, just a little late!)**

OoOoO

Dying. She had to be _dying_. Had to be. This wasn't the sort of pain that a person could be expected to _live_ through, to simply endure... _was_ it?

No. Surely not. She _had_ to be dying.

For a long time she lay exactly as they had left her, sprawled half-on and half-off the filthy, stinking mattress, now even more horrifically soiled than it had been before. Soiled with her own blood, and their... their…

_No. I can't think about that. I WON'T think about that. Won't, won't, won't_...

She wanted to curl into a ball again, but the pain was too overwhelming and she lacked the strength. She felt utterly abused, utterly degraded, utterly used up. She'd struggled against them as hard as she could, for as long as she could, injured wrist or no... had managed to land one or two passable kicks in the process... and as a result they'd been... just completely brutal.

_Unbelievably_ brutal.

If her wrist hadn't actually been broken before, it most assuredly was now. She had a couple of cracked ribs at this point to go along with it... though she wasn't actually aware of that fact. All she was aware of was that she hurt more than she ever had in her life, in ways she hadn't even realized a person _could_ hurt. Her breaths were shallow, rapid, panting because of the injuries to her ribs. Her body was telling her it wanted desperately to throw up, but she was fighting the urge, keeping it in check because she knew she'd be unable to withstand the fresh pain that action would bring. She hurt all over; all over and deep _inside_ too, in the very center of her body, where they'd violated her, where they'd...

_NO! I'm not going to think about that! I'm NOT!_

Her eyes had been open, staring sightlessly into the dark in the general direction of the ceiling; she closed them now and hot, fat, stinging tears squeezed their way from beneath the lids, trickling slowly down her face to lose themselves in her tangled, sweat-damp hair.

It occurred to her then that her ordeal was not over, despite the fact that her tormenters had left some twenty minutes ago, snickering as they'd let themselves out of the cell, making incredibly crude and humiliating comments about her body as they went. Raising their voices to ensure that she heard.

This wasn't the end. They could come back at any time. This was only the beginning. This torture and debasement could go on for days... weeks... _months_. A deep shudder wracked her slim form.

_Oh God. I can't. I can't do that. I can't TAKE that. I can't, God please, I can't_...

She wanted to go home. She wanted Harry. She wanted _Ron_.

Her body surprised her with a single wretched, heaving sob then... and the pain it generated was so spectacular that lights bloomed before her eyes.

That was when the room started spinning in slow, sickening circles.

Semi-conscious at best, her thoughts were becoming disjointed.

_Something. I have to... do something. I can't just lie here. Have to... assess the damage, at least_.

_Stupid. Assessing the damage... could cause more damage. Shouldn't... shouldn't move._

In the end, though, she made herself. It simply wasn't in her nature to do nothing.

Levering herself up onto her elbows was one of the hardest, most agonizing things she'd ever done. And it was largely useless to boot. It was too dark to really make anything out, no matter how hard she stared down the length of her body... a cruelly battered body that was rapidly becoming feverish. Distantly, she registered that she was shivering, and her teeth were beginning to rattle.

She eased herself back down again. She could devise more about her current physical state by touch than by sight at the moment. Could feel, for instance, that there was blood drying on her thighs; blood and... and something else. Something she _WAS NOT_ going to think about. She hadn't been a virgin, thank _God_... she'd given that most precious of gifts to Ron not quite a week before; on the night he'd proposed, in point of fact. But they'd made her bleed anyway. They'd been that rough.

She began to drift away from herself at that point. Honestly, what reason was there to stay? All she wanted was nothingness... not to have to feel what they'd done to her anymore. Not to have to _think_ about what they'd done to her anymore. Peace. Permanent would be nice but she'd settle for temporary. Temporary would do in a pinch.

She almost achieved it, too... the temporary brand, at least. She was most of the way unconscious, barely tethered to her defiled and broken body at all anymore.

Then the cell door opened again.

OoOoO

Draco stepped into the cell with his wand at the ready but not yet illuminated. He spoke her name first - "Granger?"

Waited a moment - got no response - and only then murmured, "_Lumos_." Took a few seconds to absorb what he was seeing, and then said, in a perfectly flat and inflectionless voice, "Christ."

He stayed where he was for a few heartbeats more, then repeated that single word in the same oddly toneless voice - "Christ." And crossed the room toward her. Reaching her, he bent to one knee with an easy, thoughtless grace that made Hermione wonder briefly whether _she'd_ ever be able to move that freely, that... _painlessly_ again. She thought probably not. She didn't want to deal with Malfoy right now. She didn't want to deal with _anyone_.

She pressed her eyes shut again. More tears escaped. She heard the rustling of fabric, and then felt something lightweight, soft and warm settle down on top of her. Her shivering subsided, though it didn't stop. He'd just covered her up. This fact surprised her, but did not induce her to look at him.

"Granger, open your eyes."

"No." Her voice was a rusty croak. "Get away, Malfoy. Leave me alone."

He was silent for a moment, apparently considering. Then, "is that really what you want? To be left alone, like _this_, until they come back?"

It was Hermione's turn, now, to pause and reflect. Then, "no." More tears. A slow but steady flow.

"Then open your eyes. Let me assess the damage."

"It's not my _eyes_ they hurt, Malfoy." But she obeyed.

"I can bloody well _see_ what they hurt," he retorted. "What I _want_ to see is how alert you are, whether you can follow my movements." He raised a hand into her line of vision; snapped his fingers once and then began to wave it slowly back and forth, just inches from her face. "Can you follow that?"

"Yes," she said, but she _didn't_ track his hand with her eyes. She locked them, instead, on his face. "Why the hell do you care?"

"Because you're best mates with the Boy Who Lived. That makes you incredibly important, Granger. _Incredibly_ important. Didn't you get the fucking memo?" He looked at her hard; his eyes narrowing, boring into her own. An intense, searching gaze the color of glacier ice. Then he snorted. "No. Of course you didn't. You don't think that way. You've never thought that way. You don't know _how_ to think that way." He shook his head, just once. "Very strange to me, Granger. _Very_ strange."

He unfolded back to his feet with that same lithe, natural grace. "Wait here. I'll be right back." Now it was her turn to snort, bitterly amused despite everything. "Where am I going to go, Malfoy? Off to Diagon Alley for a little shop?"

He crossed to the door, then looked back. "I can't do very much for you, you understand. Can't remove you from this cell, can't prevent _them_ coming back. Don't have the authority for either. But I'll do what I can. Hold on."

He turned and slipped out, shutting the door behind him.

It seemed that he was only gone for a matter of seconds, just the proverbial blink of an eye. But she didn't think that was possible, and so concluded that she must have blacked out for a while; lost some time. The conclusion was correct.

But that wasn't what mattered. What mattered was that he was back again, bending over her, and now he wasn't alone.

"She's got some broken bones that need to be seen to before we move her," he said to his newfound companions - a pair of unusually brisk-looking house elves - then let's get her up off the floor. Hang on -" she saw that he was making passes over her with his wand, the tip of which was glowing green except for when it encountered an area of particular hurt; then a cool shower of red sparks erupted from it. He was running some kind of diagnostics on her injuries. "Looks like her right wrist for sure... couple of ribs. There's plenty more damage too, but the rest can wait until we get her elevated. All right - get to it."

He stood back and then it was the house elves who were leaning close over her, taking a moment to conduct an inspection of their own, it seemed, before setting to work. Then they were all quick efficiency, tending her in absolute silence, shooting one another occasional glances that seemed heavy with meaning, but not uttering a sound.

"Thank you," Hermione murmured, actually catching one of the creatures' diminutive wrists as it worked. "What's your name?" The elf pulled away, looking startled almost to the point of alarm before bending back to its task.

"Don't talk to the elves, Granger," Draco said, hunkering down beside her. "They're not accustomed to our kind addressing them so familiarly. It destroys their concentration, and makes them uncomfortable. Besides which, it's completely pointless. Their names are not important. What's important is that they're the best damn medics we have; better than any witch or wizard trained in the healing arts I've ever encountered. They've patched up just about everyone on our side, including myself, more than once. You wouldn't get better care even at St. Mungo's. Although -" he paused and glanced around the dank cell - "I suppose the hospital itself is somewhat more appealing a facility."

He appeared to reflect on that fact for a few seconds, then frowned. "Hm. Anyway, they'll never answer you because the Dark Lord decided that speech is an unnecessary and... distracting ability for them to possess. He's muffled them, permanently."

"That's barbaric," Hermione whispered. Then one of the elves chose that particular moment in time to reset the mangled bone in her wrist, with no prior warning, resulting in a small but nevertheless horrible _pop_ - and she screamed and passed out.

OoOoO

She came back around to the sound of her name.

"Granger. _Granger._ Wakey-wakey, come on."

She blinked her eyes slowly open; blinked; struggled to focus. Just about her whole line of vision was taken up by Draco, who was leaning close over her with a glass of water in his hand. Seeing that she'd come around, he slipped his other hand under her head and lifted. "Drink."

She did so, realizing as the cool water passed her lips just how ragingly thirsty she'd actually _been;_ she drank until she nearly choked, Draco pulling the glass away when she began to cough and sputter. "Pace yourself, Granger, shit."

Though there was irritation in his voice, his hand as he eased her head back down to the pillow was oddly gentle.

_Wait... pillow?_

A quick glance around herself revealed that the healer-elves were gone, and though she remained in the same horrible little underground cell, someone - either the elves or Draco himself, presumably - had vanished the awful, stained and ripped mattress. It had been replaced by one that was considerably newer, sat higher from the floor, and was equipped with all the accessories one normally associated with a mattress; sheets, pillows, even a fluffy duvet.

Also, she felt quite a bit better. Physically, at any rate. Still terrifically sore, every inch of her; but the screaming agony she been in before was gone; likewise the feverishness. Emotionally, well... that was something else. There were _big_ problems there. And yet even that wasn't as bad as it could have been... maybe should have been.

_It's shock,_ she thought. _Everything is being dulled by shock_. And seeing as that thought _itself_ was dull; muted and... distant somehow, as if it were actually someone _else's_ thought that she just happened to be picking up on - she supposed it must be true.

Everything was still there; the grief, the anger, the disgust, the shame, the humiliation... but it was tucked away at the moment, to be examined at another time. She couldn't deal with it right now. She _wouldn't_ deal with it right now.

She let her eyes fall shut.

"How long was - was I-" she broke off coughing again, the water she'd accidentally inhaled still troubling her. It didn't matter; Draco understood what she was asking.

"Couple of hours," he said.

"And the battle...?"

"Ongoing. In fact, I need to get back." He frowned down at the Dark Mark on his own arm. "I've stayed away too long. I'm not going to get myself in trouble for you, Granger - understand that. I'm not going to stick my neck out. And I can't protect you from _them_ - understand that too. We have to share you - those are the orders. I fought it straight to the top; those are _still_ the orders. I think they're blind, short-sighted idiots if they can't see what an un-fucking-_believably_ valuable asset you are, but be that as it may, I'm not gonna risk my arse for you. Got it?"

"Yeah," she said listlessly, turning her head toward the wall. "I got it, Malfoy."

"Good." She heard him set the glass down. "Then we understand each other. See ya round, Granger."

She didn't answer - just continued to stare at the dark, damp stone of the cell wall as he let himself out.

And he _did_ see her around. But he was not the next person to come back.

_They_ came back before he did.

OoOoO

The pain was excruciating; the humiliation overwhelming. But the worst thing they did to her this time, the very _worst_, was to notice the engagement ring Ron had placed on her finger - and to take it away from her. Speculating, as they left her sobbing in a heap on the floor, about how many galleons it might fetch them down in Knocturn Alley... and whether it would be better to take it to a shop, or just to sell it themselves on a street corner.

It was a long time before the cell door opened again; most of a day, though Hermione had no way of knowing this. In her underground prison there was no such thing as daylight or nighttime... no differentiating between dusk, or midnight, or dawn. There was just darkness and suffering, and the atrocities inflicted upon her by two out of three of her captors. Her _owners_, now.

"Granger?"

The voice seemed to be coming from a long, long ways off. In a way, it hardly sounded real at all; it sounded like something from a dream... there was an echoey quality about it that was almost surreal.

"_Granger?_"

It would be a struggle to get herself back into the same consciousness - the same plane of existence - as that voice. And she wasn't at all sure that it would prove to be _worth_ the struggle in the end.

That plane of existence held only pain for her, pain and despair. She was sure of this without remembering exactly _how_ she was sure.

"Grange - aw, fuck. Fuck _me_." Footsteps. A sensation of being lifted. Then, at close range, the voice again. "_Ennervate!_"

And she no longer had a choice. She was jolted back to full consciousness, whether she willed it or not.

OoOoO

The spell had an effect like a mild electrical shock. Her whole body jerked and she gasped, eyes flying open. She was back atop the bed that Draco had magicked into the cell on his previous visit, and he was scowling down at her as he stashed his wand away; sugar-white fringe falling half across his eyes.

Bringing her own eyes into something that passed for focus, she saw that he had bandages across his chest, shoulder, and down one arm clear to the elbow. Behind him, the silent pair of house elves was making for the door. It had seemed as if no more than a couple of seconds had passed between the time she'd heard him enter and call her name, and the time he'd _Ennervated_ her... but apparently she'd lost some time again. If the elves had finished their work already, she _must_ have lost some time.

Draco followed her gaze for a second, then his near colorless eyes snapped back to her face. "Yeah," he said flatly as the elves let themselves out, "I had them do me right after they finished doing you. Just a little something I picked up in the fighting, not serious." As if she had asked. He reached up with the un-bandaged arm; shoved his hair back, out of his face. "You were _far_ worse. You have to stop fighting them, you know. You're not a stupid girl. Surely you realize that the harder you fight, the more they'll hurt you. You fucking _like_ it, Granger? That's the only explanation I can think of. You must get off on pain. Because otherwise, you'd stop making it worse on your-"

_WHAP_.

The whip-crack sound of the slap reverberated around the tiny cell; the close, damp walls seeming to magnify it somehow. It was difficult in that instant to say who was more shocked; Draco, with the crimson handprint blooming across his pale cheek, or Hermione, her stinging hand falling back to the coverlet beside her.

She, however, recovered first.

"Don't you ever, _ever_ say that to me again." Her voice was low-pitched and shaking. "If I stop fighting, I give up. If I give up, I despair. If I despair, I die. Don't you _ever_ imply that I fight because I like... _like_ what they..."

She had to break off; her breaths were piling up to the point where coherent speech was deserting her. It didn't matter; she'd made her point. Draco stared at her for a moment in utter, stunned stupefaction... then his eyes narrowed to furious, glittering slits. "Fine, Granger," he snarled, "you want to make it worse on yourself, go right ahead. You're barking, you know that, you mudblood twat? People go on about how clever you are - you're not clever, you're fucking insane. I was trying to _help_ you - trying to keep you in one piece - and do you see anyone else around here queuing up to do that? Hm? But now, you know what? You get what you get. And when Nott and Zabini hand your tits to fucking Weasley in a box, I'll be laughing just as hard as anyone else. So _FUCK. YOU_."

He spun on his heel and made for the door - almost reached it, too, before it opened yet again.

And this time it wasn't Zabini and Nott. Or at least, it wasn't_ just_ Zabini and Nott.

No, this time it was a _whole_ lot worse.

OoOoO

Hermione propelled herself into a sitting position; a few last, tattered remnants of defiance blazing behind her eyes. A whole entourage of people was clustered in the doorway of the cell now - the two _creatures_ who had repeatedly raped her _were_ there, but they weren't in front. When all was said and done, they were young, relatively unimportant, new recruits... and thus were relegated to back-row status.

The important Death Eaters, the ones with real rank, were in front - and dead center was none other than the Dark Lord himself, come for a look at his most valuable prisoner.

Regarding her out of cold, flat reptilian eyes, he did not look impressed.

"Hey Malfoy," Blaise shouted from behind Bellatrix LeStrange's shoulder, breaking the heavy silence that had descended over the room, "finding her a bit too much to handle?" The dark-skinned boy clapped a hand to his cheek in a comically exaggerated fashion, clearly referencing the palm-shaped slap mark that was still plainly visible on Draco's face. "Theo and I can hold her down for you, you know - all you have to do is swallow your pride and ask nice!"

A few guffaws greeted this witticism; even Bellatrix uttered a high-pitched and obviously insane little giggle. But then Voldemort raised a hand in a staying motion, and the room grew preternaturally still and quiet once more.

When the snake-man spoke, it was also to address Draco, who had frozen in place when the door had burst open and was standing directly between his lord and the girl on the bed.

"Step aside, boy. I have come for a look at the girl, not at you."

Bellatrix tittered her high, mad laugh again. Draco hesitated for just a fraction of a second - was it simply lingering paralysis, or was it something else? - and then did as he was told. Hermione found herself completely engulfed by that horrible, inhuman stare.

"Well well," Voldemort said with deceptive softness, "so this is the little mudblood brat whose absence is causing such a stir on the other side. Interesting... interesting indeed."

Hermione swallowed hard, attempting to stave off the panic that threatened to overwhelm her. She'd gone absolutely cold - _freezing_ cold from head to foot, and right through to the center of her; right down to her bones. Clammy sweat beaded her forehead, and it felt as though her heart were pounding at her temples. Pure evil - she was being pinned in the glare of _pure evil_. It was terror like she'd never known.

But even so, that tiny rational corner of her mind piped up. And what it said was, _What would Harry do?_

Well, _that_ answer was simple. And she acted on it with no further conscious thought.

"Go fall off a broomstick, _Tom_," she spat. "Rumor has it _you're_ a mudblood too."

There was a gasp of horror from the assembled Death Eaters that was so perfectly choreographed, under different circumstances it might have been humorous. Then Bellatrix, purple-faced and apoplectic with rage, whipped out her wand and screeched, "_Crucio!_"

Hermione barely had time to brace for the pain... and it wouldn't have made a difference in any case. There _is_ no preparation that can lessen the blinding, howling agony of that particular curse.

She lost time again.

OoOoO

When she came back to herself, at least a little, she was curled in a ball on the stone floor, apparently having fallen off the bed while under the influence of the curse. She was shaking so hard from the curse's aftereffects, she was practically convulsing; deep, sustained shudders ripping through her body one after another after another.

Voldemort was speaking from far above her... his voice sounded as faint and distant as if he were on another plane of existence altogether.

" - do appreciate your... fervor, Bella, but that will be quite enough. I am more than capable of handling this situation myself, thank you very much."

She heard Bellatrix's voice respond in a thin, wheedling tone, but couldn't make out what the demon-woman was saying. Her attention was focused on something a good deal closer at hand; Voldemort was using one booted foot to nudge her onto her back. He then planted that same foot squarely in the middle of her ribcage and bore down, making her gasp.

"Look at me, girl," he demanded, and increased the pressure on her chest until she did so, hating herself for capitulating.

His terrible, crimson, inhuman eyes were speculative, and coolly, distantly amused. "You've got some nerve, I'll give you that," he said calmly. "I understand you're quite close to the Potter boy. Let's see if you know anything of value... shall we?"

She had just time to think, _Oh my God, he's going to_ -

And then he hit her with the full, brutal force of his own particular brand of Legilimency.

Those scarlet eyes, as remarkable for their cruelty as for their color, were boring into her, _eating_ into her, taking up her whole line of vision - the whole room - the whole world.

And his consciousness... so horrible, so malicious, so cold, was worming its way into her thoughts, prying them open for his examination, attempting to do to her mind what Nott and Zabini had done to her body.

_No. NO! Must - get - defenses - UP!_

It was quite possibly the most difficult thing she'd done in her entire life to date, because Voldemort was renowned throughout the wizarding world for his Legilimency skills, and rightly so. But she managed - barely - to slam her defenses into place just as she'd been taught.

_It was bright. A bright, cool, early spring morning in her last year at Hogwarts. The snow had only just finished melting and the students, who had been bursting to get out of the castle, were in the midst of a mass exodus down the hill to Hogsmeade Village. _

_Hermione had slept in - a rare and delicious indulgence during her Hogwarts days. Indeed, for Hermione, a rare and delicious indulgence _period_. She was not often a late riser. She simply had too much to do - always._

_But she'd slept in this morning, and she felt wonderful. Felt as if she were practically treading air as she hurried along the path to town between her boys. Harry and Ron, each of whom was just as ebullient on this crisp, clear morning as she was. And that was a rarity these days... for Harry especially. He'd become more and more somber, more and more _grim_, as he grew. As the destiny he'd never sought, yet knew he could not escape, loomed ever larger, ever more ominous, over him. _

_But that was for another day and somehow - she didn't know how and honestly, it didn't really matter - he'd put his grimness aside for the moment. Today they were simply three teenagers, three schoolchildren, three among many, headed to town for a much anticipated outing. _

_Impulsively, Hermione had grabbed both Ron and Harry by the hands, and had run the rest of the distance to arrive at the edge of the village flushed, out of breath and laughing. Ron, caught on the tide of high spirits, had quite unexpectedly lifted her clear off the ground, and swung her in a full circle before depositing her back on the street._

"_Come on," she'd exclaimed, "let's start with a butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks, shall we?"_

_Her companions had agreed but really she should have known better, because in order to reach the tavern they'd had to pass directly in front of Zonko's Joke Shop... and she supposed it had been inevitable, really, that Harry and Ron should first have slowed, then have stopped, staring into the large plate-glass windows, utterly transfixed by the colorful displays of merchandise._

_She'd waited patiently for a moment, but when they'd still been rooted to the spot, heads bent together as they'd discussed one particular item that had caught their fancy in low, urgent tones, she'd stomped a foot and huffed her displeasure._

_It was all an act, of course; she hadn't felt capable of anything even approaching true displeasure on that perfect morning. It was an act, but it had recaptured their attention, both of them looking suitably sheepish as they'd turned back toward her. _

"_Er... sorry, Hermione. We'll just, uh..." Harry had glanced back toward the window, an expression of longing plain on his face. "Do you think we could come back here, first thing, just as soon as we finish our drink?"_

"_Oh for Heaven's sake, Harry Potter -" that was all she'd gotten out before dissolving completely into laughter. He'd just looked, in that moment, so much like a child begging his mother for some toy or sweet. "Just go into that silly store now, or it's all you'll be thinking about the whole time we're in the pub!"_

"_Really?" his face had lit up - so boyish. So rare. So precious. Acting on yet another impulse, she'd raised a gloved hand and pressed it to his cheek. "Yes, really. Both of you. I'll go on ahead and get us a table." She'd turned to look at Ron. "All right?"_

_And Ron had amazed her._

"_No, I'll stay with you, Hermione." _

_Harry's eyebrows had shot up, apparently as surprised as Hermione herself. The redheaded boy had dug into his pocket, pulled out a handful of coins, and pressed them into Harry's hand. "You know the one I want," he'd said, "come on and catch us up in a minute." Harry had vanished into the shop. And Ron had amazed her again._

_He'd taken her by the hand, lacing his fingers through her own as they'd turned their steps toward The Three Broomsticks. And this was something different, something new. Something far outside the ordinary realm of their friendship. She'd felt it, her heart thudding, pulse racing, breaths coming quicker in the chill morning air. She'd been waiting for so long... _hoping_ for so long... never quite allowing herself to believe that maybe, just maybe... could it be true that he shared her feelings? Was this what she'd been praying for...?_

_It was. Because when they reached the little pub, he'd amazed her a third time. He'd stopped, but hadn't released her hand. Instead, he'd pulled her gently around to face him. Lifted both his hands to frame her face, using one of them to sweep her wind-tousled hair back, out of her eyes. Had dipped his own head - (so tall; he'd recently hit another growth spurt and had gotten so tall) - until their noses had nearly been touching, and she could smell peppermint humbugs on his breath._

_He'd just stared into her eyes for a long, spiraling, perfectly gorgeous moment, absently caressing her cheek with one thumb - he hadn't been wearing gloves, she'd noticed distractedly; being Ronald Weasley, he'd forgotten them._

_"Hermione, I -" his voice had been a touch ragged around the edges; he'd been breathing just as hard as she was. He'd pressed his eyes closed for just the briefest heartbeat's worth of time, screwing up his courage, it looked like, and then - "I think I love you. And not just as mates either, I mean... I think I really LOVE you. Have for a while, actually. I -" _

_But there had been no more talking then, because she'd surged up onto her tiptoes, throwing her arms around him and meeting his lips with her own. One of his hands had plunged into her hair, fingers tangling in its dark, heavy masses as he'd held her face to his; the other one had dropped to her waist, his arm wrapping hard around her body and pulling her deeper, almost desperately into the kiss. And it had been the most giddy, amazing, wonderful moment of her life; she could have lived in that moment forever; she_ -

And then it was over; the invasive, probing tendrils of Voldemort's mind withdrawing, and the memory she'd wrapped around herself like a protective cocoon evaporated like smoke in a breeze. Drifting away, leaving her gasping on the cold dungeon floor."

Disgusting," Voldemort said, his voice a hateful hiss. "Absolutely vile." But he didn't sound disgusted. To Hermione he sounded frustrated. _Supremely_ frustrated. He knew he'd been blocked. Damned if he was going to let on to his followers, though. He left her where she was, and crossed back to the door. "Pathetic girl knows nothing. What a waste of time. Still... she clearly does have some value to our enemies, not least of all to the Potter boy himself. So we'll keep her alive a little longer; Draco may yet prove correct about her potential use as a bargaining chip." He looked directly at Zabini and Nott then, pinning them with his hideous, snake-like eyes. "Is that clear? You are not to break her. At least, not... irreparably."

Appreciative snickers greeted this, and most of the crowd of Death Eaters began to disperse. Zabini and Nott remained behind, though, and made as if to approach her. But then Draco was back in her line of sight, barring their way once again. "Bugger off, both of you," he said flatly. "I'm not done with my turn."

"What, fancy getting slapped around some more?" Nott asked, his eyes glittering maliciously.

"Or maybe," Zabini put in, "you'd like to magick her up a few more luxury furnishings? A marble bath, perhaps? A velvet settee? Her own staff of house elves to cook her meals and keep her entertained? I'm not sure I like how soft you are on the mudblood, Malfoy. I'm not sure the Dark Lord would like it either."

The Dark Lord in question had stopped, just as Zabini had doubtless intended, right outside the cell. And though he did not actually deign to look back, he was clearly listening to this exchange. Listening carefully.

But if Nott and Zabini had thought they could show up Draco Malfoy, they had been sorely mistaken. The white-haired boy made a sound in the back of his throat that was nothing less than pure, concentrated contempt; contempt bordering on loathing. "Are you actually suggesting that I conjured this bed for _her_ sake?" he demanded. "The bed is for _my_ comfort, idiot. Unlike some present," and though he was looking straight at Zabini and Nott, it was clear that he was speaking to somebody else entirely - he was speaking directly to Voldemort - "_I_ prefer the amenities of civilized life, instead of rutting on the ground like beasts."

Voldemort uttered a short, but nonetheless clearly appreciative, bark of laughter - and swept off down the hall.

"Now. Get. Out." Draco's voice was low - almost silken - and incredibly dangerous. Nott and Zabini left. They glared daggers at him the whole way - but they left.

The door clanged shut behind them.


	3. Chapter 3

"Shit," Draco said softly. Standing in the middle of the room, looking toward the closed door, he raised both hands and raked them distractedly through his hair. "Shit."

Hermione, struggling up onto her elbows, still shaking from the aftereffects of both Bellatrix's curse and Voldemort's invasion of her mind, didn't know who he was talking to. She didn't think he was talking to her. She really didn't even think he was talking to _himself._

He turned toward her then, pale eyes speculative. "You blocked him," he said. "You kept him out." It wasn't a question.

Hermione was caught off guard. "How do you know that?"

"I'm pretty good at reading people." He crossed over to her. "He wasn't happy."

She was still fighting just to regain a sitting position; still failing. He bent and scooped her up effortlessly, depositing her on the edge of the bed and sinking down beside her. "Show me what your defenses were," he said. "Show _me_ what you showed _him,_ instead of what he wanted to see."

God, hadn't she been violated enough for one day? "I'd rather not," she said.

"It wasn't a request, Granger."

"But _why?_"

He gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Call it simple curiosity. In fact, I don't really give a fuck _what_ you call it; just _do_ it. Show me."

There was no getting around it. She closed her eyes; more tears slipped from beneath the lids to streak down her face, which was paper-white after all she'd just endured. It seemed as if she had an _endless_ supply of tears at the ready these days. "All right, Malfoy. Come on. Get it over with." And then he was there, a presence at the edge of her mind, not invading, not trying to force his way in as Voldemort had; just waiting. Waiting for her to show him. Knowing that she would. Because he'd told her to.

So, she did.

OoOoO

"Huh," he said musingly, several moments later, after he'd disengaged. "So that's how you do it. A strong, positive memory... like what you'd call on for a Patronus. Interesting... very interesting. Thanks, Granger."

"You're welcome." Her voice was low and listless. "Do you think... maybe... Malfoy... I could be alone for a while now?"

He gave himself a slight shake, as if bringing himself back to the present. Gave her another long, measured look. Said, "not just yet, Granger."

"Malfoy... please." She _hated_ herself for begging, but there it was. She was so _tired,_ just physically and mentally and emotionally exhausted. All she wanted was to curl into a ball and think about nothing, nothing at all. "I gave you what you wanted, I -"

"You haven't given me everything I want, Granger," he said, "not yet." And his voice was quiet, and it was calm, but it was also terrible, because it brooked no argument. And then he was pushing her down, gently but implacably, onto her back on the bed, and this couldn't be happening, this _couldn't_ be happening, not him too, God no, God _NO!_

It was a scream inside her head, but all she could seem to force past her lips was a sound barely more than a whisper.

"Malfoy, don't. _Please_ don't. Oh God, please _don't!_ Not you too, please no, no, I can't... take anymore... I can't... I can't..."

"Shhh, Granger. Don't talk. It's better that way." He pressed a hand over her mouth, muffling her. The action was oddly gentle, but had an air of absolute finality.

With the others, she'd fought like mad, fought until they'd left her half-dead, and when they'd come back again, she'd _done_ it again, even knowing, that second time, what the consequence would be. But this was different, for some reason she couldn't quite define (_I was starting to trust him, that's why, God help me, I was actually starting to _trust_ him_) and she couldn't seem to gather the strength, or will, to do anything but stare up at him through eyes that were positively _flooded_ with tears.

He shifted his weight, positioning himself over her, nudging her thighs apart and still she couldn't seem to bring herself to offer any resistance - she was too overwhelmed, too completely swamped by sorrow, too (_broken, that's what it is, the others used force but they didn't break me; I'm broken _now_ though, oh God, Ron I'm so sorry, I'm broken broken broken_.)

And then he was entering her; taking the hand that wasn't covering her mouth and trailing it down her body, grasping her by one slim hip and steadying her for his intrusion, closing his eyes and biting his lip as he pushed in... and even his muffling hand couldn't completely stifle her sobbing groan of pain and despair because it hurt so _much_... he was still being strangely gentle but the others had damaged her inside and so it hurt, it hurt, oh dear sweet God it _HURT_.

After that, all she could do was turn her head toward the wall. And cry. And endure.

OoOoO

"Why?"

The word came out choked, just as he reached for the door handle to let himself out of the cell. Hermione was curled once more into a ball, and with her back to him. One arm was wrapped tight around her stomach, where she still throbbed and hurt deep, deep down - the stinging saltiness of what he'd left inside of her didn't help matters any - her other arm was thrown over her face. She didn't see him drop his hand back to his side and stand where he was for a moment, as if pondering his answer.

"Sorry, Granger," he said at last, but he didn't sound particularly sorry. He didn't sound particularly... _anything_. "It's expected of me; _especially_ after today's little... interview, as it were. Besides which, I have to say you _are_ an attractive girl, even when you cry. And in the end... when you get right down to it... well, I'm just not that nice a guy, really."

And he was gone without another word.

OoOoO

Days passed... or was it weeks? Or months?

Every so often a plate of food would appear, doubtless courtesy of some unseen house elf elsewhere in the building. Awhile later (maybe an hour or so, Hermione thought) it would disappear again, regardless of whether she'd touched it or not. She didn't always eat, but she ate enough to keep herself from visibly wasting away, because Draco said to her once, looking at her hard after she'd gone without food for three or four days, that he could see she was losing weight and if he were even to suspect that she was starving herself on purpose he'd simply have to _Imperio_ her and _make_ her eat.

Despite the many varieties of torture, abuse and debasement she was being regularly subjected to, it seemed to Hermione that surrendering her free will to the Imperius Curse would be a worse violation than any of them. So she'd forced herself to choke some food down if not every time the plate appeared, then at least more often than not.

It was impossible to keep track of time in her underground cell; therefore, time lost virtually all of its meaning. There were only three times now, by which she could differentiate her imprisonment - the hellish time she spent being tormented by Nott and Zabini; the time she spent in the company of Draco, who was always much gentler with her but equally ruthless about taking what he wanted; and the time she spent alone.

Thankfully, most of her time was spent alone.

Voldemort also visited twice more in order to delve into her unwilling mind, but with no better results than the first time. She was able to escape into that fantasy Hogsmeade moment, spinning it around her so quickly and completely that it became almost more real than the miserable circumstances that comprised her present life. She found she could retreat to it also while Zabini and Nott heaped abuse on her body; but for some inexplicable reason, it never did work when Draco was there. She would try, but to no avail. Over and over and _over_ again, every time he took her, all of her defenses failed. She could not summon the necessary strength to fight him, nor the necessary focus to take refuge inside her own mind. When it was Draco above her, Draco thrusting into her, all she could do was lie underneath him and cry.

Yet there was such a bizarre duality to his presence, to his behavior toward her. Upon arrival, his first order of business was always to tend to whatever new damage had been inflicted by Zabini and Nott. After the first couple of times, he didn't even bother coming alone and then summoning the healer elves; he just arrived with them in tow. And if he was sporting some new injury or wound from the fighting, he'd have them see to her first. She wasn't conscious every time he arrived, but she was conscious often enough to see the pattern emerging.

If she asked him why, he always said the same thing; she was valuable, she was important, she was an asset. Certainly no one else treated her like an asset, but he never gave her any other answer, so after a while she stopped asking.

As time crept on, it got harder and harder to care.

There were other things he did for her too - though always, it seemed, with an undercurrent of self-interest at their root. He _did_ bring her the means to bathe, for instance, just as Zabini had so snidely suggested he might. Nothing as elaborate as a marble bath, but a simple basin full of steaming hot water did the trick nicely. But it didn't take a genius to figure out that at the core of his motivation was the fact that he just wanted her clean before having his way with her. At one point she broke down while in the act of washing her hair, dropping her face into her hands and sobbing so hard that in the end he slipped into the tub behind her, finished rinsing her hair himself, then lifted her onto his lap and took her just like that.

Still crying. She always cried when it was Draco. Always.

There was no denying, however, that as the interminable days of her captivity wore on, the feeling that would sweep her when the cell door opened and she saw that it was _him_ standing there was nothing short of full-fledged, profound relief. How could she help but be relieved to see him, considering what the alternatives were when that door opened?

Then came the day that Nott and Zabini arrived not alone, but with four other young Death Eaters in tow.

OoOoO

Hermione Granger had never been a stupid girl. She understood immediately what was going on. And she understood that this was the thing that would break her irreparably. This would strip the last shreds of sanity from her; she would never be whole, never be completely _human_, again after this.

She'd thought she was broken before, but this... _this_ was going to seal the deal. Totally and permanently.

She shot to her feet and backed away, her eyes wide and wild. Blaise was in the act of taking money from one of the newcomers; a particularly brutish looking specimen with tiny, piggish eyes that glinted with lust as they followed Hermione's every movement. _NO NO NO NO NO_ - it was a scream inside her mind, beating in time with her pulse, and although she wasn't consciously aware of it, at least some whispered version of that frantic cry must have passed her lips because Blaise flapped an impatient hand in her direction and said, "Theo, will you go over there and shut her _up!_"

By this time she'd wedged herself into a corner of the room, as tightly as she possibly could. Nott approached and, barely even breaking stride, grabbed her by a fistful of her hair and slammed her head twice, hard, into the stone wall. The pain was indescribable. Light exploded before her eyes, followed by large blooms of darkness as the floor pitched violently beneath her feet and the world tried its damnedest to slide away from her entirely. She was barely half-conscious as, still holding her by the hair, Nott forcibly dragged her back over to the others.

Blaise and the thuggish Death Eater with the lustful eyes had been haggling over price; apparently they now reached some sort of agreement because the newcomer, with a resentful grunt, slapped another coin into Blaise's hand. Blaise then took a step backward and said, "go to it then, mate - she's all yours. Ten minutes and not a second longer; there's others want turns beside you."

Up to this point, Nott had been holding her at least semi-upright; now he released her, and her legs buckled. She collapsed to the floor and the brute who'd just bought himself ten minutes of time with her was on her like a predator on prey. She tried to struggle but her own limbs wouldn't obey her; she was utterly disoriented from the blows to her head, and her arms and legs felt as if they had lead weights attached. She seemed to be swimming through the air, moving in slow motion as she tried to fight him off; but everything around her was proceeding at normal speed, and so she never had a chance.

He flipped her over, slamming her down on her stomach hard enough to knock the air from her lungs, growling something about how face-down was good enough for mudblood sluts like her. Still she writhed and kicked, but it was no use; she couldn't prevent him from wrenching her legs apart. All she'd been wearing was an oversized tee-shirt and pair of soft, faded old boxer shorts that belonged to Draco; he'd left them with her following his most recent visit. They were a flimsy defense against this horrific assault.

That was when there was another explosive, blinding flash of light, accompanied this time by several startled cries - and her newest assailant was literally _blasted_ off of her, sent flying halfway across the room.

Draco's voice spoke into the shocked silence that followed. It was colored by such white-hot fury that at first, she barely recognized it.

"What - the _fuck_ - is _THIS?_"

"Get out of here, Malfoy," Blaise snarled, sounding pretty damn angry himself. "It isn't your turn."

"It isn't _his_ turn, either," Draco spat, as Hermione curled herself into the smallest ball she could manage, struggling at the same time to regain the breath that had been so viciously knocked out of her. "He doesn't _get_ a turn, because she belongs to the three of _us_. ONLY the three of us. Which you damn well know. What the fuck are you _playing_ at, Zabini?"

"Shove OFF, Malfoy," Nott interjected then. "We can do anything we like with her during our turns, including make some money! No one ever said we couldn't."

"Goddamn it," Draco swore, and then, "tell them to clear out. You want to talk business, we'll talk business. But you clear them out."

A couple of moments passed during which Theo and Blaise debated, in low voices, whether or not to comply with Draco's request. It was a close thing, but in the end they did indeed clear the room. a fair amount of mutinous grumbling ensued, but ultimately the other young men they'd brought in with them did leave.

"This had better be good, Malfoy," Blaise said, the second the door had closed behind the last of the angrily muttering newcomers. "We were going to earn five _galleons_ off of her today!"

Draco cut right to the chase. "A hundred galleons to each of you, right now, in exchange for giving up your stake in her. She becomes one hundred percent mine, effective immediately."

For a few seconds there was no sound at all - just the silence of complete and total astonishment. Then, "holy _shit,_" Theo breathed.

Blaise, however, managed to keep his wits about him with considerably more success. "_Two_ hundred each," he countered.

"A hundred and fifty each," Draco replied, "and that's my final offer. Take it or leave it."

They took it.

OoOoO

She was still curled into a shivering ball, eyes scrunched tightly shut, when he approached her. And, even though she'd heard the entire exchange and knew - (at least, the _rational _part of her knew) - that Draco was the only person left in the room with her, she still panicked the instant she felt his hands come in contact with her body. Honestly it barely mattered, at that point, _whose_ hands they were; after what had nearly happened, she did _not want to be touched right now_. At all. By _anyone_.

"NO!" the hoarse cry was ripped from her as her whole body stiffened against him. He was trying to turn her to face him, straighten her out. It just increased her frantic state. "Get off me, don't _touch_ me, don't... don't..."

"Granger. Granger! _Shit!_ Will you just -" at that point she managed to land a pretty decent kick, then immediately cringed, bracing herself instinctively for a blow in return. After all, if it had been Nott or Zabini, this was when things would have gotten really ugly.

"Ow. _Damn_ it!" Draco sounded put out, but far from murderous. He did, however, strengthen his grip on her, effectively stilling her struggles. "Granger." He pulled her into a sitting position; gave her a little shake. "Look at me. Goddamn it, will you open your eyes and _look_ at me!"

She did, finally, her own eyes still panicked; the eyes of a desperate, trapped animal. "Granger," he said, "I'm the only one here. It's just me. So breathe. For God's sake, just _breathe!_"

She struggled to pull in a deep breath; she'd been breathing at the very top of her lungs - rapid, shallow, panting little bursts. At long last she managed something resembling a normal breath, and then the room pitched and tilted again; the sudden rush of oxygen making her dizzy. At that point she grabbed double fistfuls of Draco's shirt and buried her face against his chest, sobbing uncontrollably.

"Shit," he swore again, but quietly this time. Then he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him tighter still, and simply let her cry it out.

It took a long time for the tears to exhaust themselves, but when they'd finally dried up he took her by the shoulders and pushed her gently away from himself, in order to hold her at arm's length.

"Granger," he said, and then waited until she looked up at him, locking her dark eyes on his pale ones. His quicksilver eyes were burning with an unusual intensity. "How many of them raped you before I got here? And which ones? I want to know which ones."

She swallowed hard and shook her head - then raised a shaking hand; pressed her palm against her temple. The simple act of shaking her head had caused her earlier dizziness to return with an almost nauseating force. "Nuh... none of them," she managed, as the room spun sickeningly around her. "They had... only just gotten here, they..." she trailed off, blinked hard. She couldn't seem to keep Draco in focus any longer. He was blurring around the edges; sliding away to one side. "I don't... feel right," she said. "At all."

Still holding her by the shoulders, he gave her another slight shake - which didn't help with the vertigo. "None of them, Granger?" he asked, with that same odd vehemence. "Really, _none?_"

"Really." Her voice, by now, was barely a whisper. "Malfoy, I... th... hink I need to lie down."

"All right," he said. "Come on, let's get you off the floor." Catching her under the elbows, he unfolded to his feet and pulled her up with him. "You can - Granger? _Granger!_ What the FUCK!"

Hermione had gasped, and collapsed against him; he only managed to prevent her from sliding back to the floor by clasping her to him once more. He snaked one arm hard around her waist, with lightning speed; his other hand went to the back of her head. She screamed then, the sound muffled by the fabric of his shirt.

"What..." Draco's voice was puzzled more than anything - at least at first. But a different tone, one that sounded uncannily like genuine concern - concern verging on panic, even - was quickly mounting. "What the... blood! Why is there _blood?_ You said they didn't... Granger! Granger, where are you bleeding from! Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck _me_."

She made a sick little sound somewhere between a whimper and a groan as he scooped her into his arms and deposited her on the bed, taking care to place her down on her side so he could confirm that yes, the source of the blood was a wound to the back of her head.

Her thick, dark hair was soaked with it.

He swore astonishingly then, at the same time grabbing for his wand in order to send up a distress signal that Hermione knew, from past experience, would bring the healer elves on the run.

He then grabbed her by the chin, and none too gently; compelling her to look at him. "Granger. I think you have a concussion. You keep looking at me, all right? Just keep looking at me. Do _not_ close your eyes. Do you hear me? Granger? Granger!"

"I... I hear... you..."

"Good. How did this happen? Which one of them _did_ this?"

"Nott, he hit... my head on the wall but... only because Zabini told... told... him to shut me up," she whispered. Her eyes were drifting closed; she couldn't help it.

"Granger, don't do that."

"I feel so strange... and tired."

"I don't give a shit how you feel, I _told _you to keep looking at me! Granger!"

"I can't..."

"You bloody well can!" He snapped his fingers, not an inch from her face. "Granger!"

But the fatigue was just too great. Consciousness was slipping away from her and she couldn't hold onto it no matter how she tried. She just couldn't. Her entire body relaxing, she slipped away into darkness. The last thing she heard was his voice shouting her name over and over again, _Granger, Granger_ - and finally, just before he was lost to her completely -

"_Hermione!_"


	4. Chapter 4

She woke alone, and was immediately disoriented by the bar of light - _daylight_ - falling across the coverlet of her bed. That there should be daylight was... just really _wrong_ somehow... but she couldn't, at first, put her finger on _why_.

Then everything came back in a rush. The daylight was so strange to her because she hadn't _seen_ it in... what? Weeks? _Months?_ She couldn't possibly be in the dank, underground cell that had been her prison, her _world_, for all that time, if there was daylight falling across her bed.

So then... where _was_ she?

She sat up, pushed the covers back, and scooted to the edge of the bed. A quick glance around her new surroundings told her that she was still in a prison cell - the walls were still stone, the door was still thick, and the daylight was filtering down though a single very high, very _small_ barred window. All of that notwithstanding, however, this was still a decided improvement over her previous accommodations.

It was larger, for one thing. Better appointed, for another. The bed was no longer the only piece of furniture. There was also a nightstand, a dresser, and even a small shelf containing - could it be? - half a dozen books or so. One corner of the room held a small table and single chair, while another had been screened off. She couldn't see what lay behind the screen from her current vantage point, so she stood - found that she was, for the most part, steady on her feet - and went over to investigate. She discovered a commode and a large basin for bathing; there was a note on the tub instructing her to knock twice on the side of it if she wanted it to fill with warm water; three times for very hot water.

It was true that the screen gave only nominal privacy to this area of the room, but considering that the entire toileting facilities of her prior cell had consisted of a circular hole, about the diameter of a large dinner plate, cut out of the floor in one corner, this was still a rather spectacular improvement.

There was even a rug on the floor - coarsely woven and threadbare, yes, but still! A rug! And a curtain she could pull across the single small window if she wished to keep the daylight out. Though she couldn't imagine why she'd ever want to do that; she thought, at the moment, that that weak and watery light was one of the most beautiful things she'd ever seen.

Just then, the door opened. Draco stood framed in the doorway for a moment, looking a bit caught off-guard at finding her on her feet. He mastered himself quickly, though, and entered, shutting the door behind him.

"It's... a relief to see you up," he said. "I thought... for a while there..." he broke off; shook his head. "Here, I brought you something. Muggle time-keeping device of some sort." He held it out her; a small, battery-operated alarm clock. "I can't figure the damn thing out, but... I'm sure _you'll_ know what to do with it."

"Uh... thank you?" She crossed over to him, took the clock. "Yes, I know just what to do with it. I had one almost just like it, at... um, at home." She deposited it on the nightstand; turned back around to face him. "How long was... was I -?"

"It's been almost three days," he said. He looked utterly wrong-footed, standing there. It was so out of character for him to be this... what? Flustered? Was that the right word? It wasn't, exactly, but it was close. Very close. "And it was touch and go at first." His brows drew together, into a scowl. "I told you to keep looking at me. I _told_ you to stay _awake_."

"Sorry." She sank down on the edge of the bed; her strength was already evaporating. "I tried. I think..." she raised one hand, massaging her temple with her fingertips. "I think I do remember really trying. So it was a concussion then?"

He crossed over to sit beside her. "Too fucking right, it was a concussion. And a bad one. Christ, Granger, I -" but he broke off again. A long moment of silence spun out between them.

"You moved me," she said finally, when the silence became too heavy to bear. "This is... much nicer. Why?"

He glanced around as if he'd never seen the room before. "Well, I couldn't very well have left you where you were. Nott and Zabini may have renounced any claim on you, but I wouldn't have put it past them to try and get back in there, just... just for the hell of it. We're still in the same building, but..." he shrugged. "They don't know where you've been moved to, and this cell's warded to allow entrance to only me. Well and… if the Dark Lord wants to get in, there's no stopping _that_ but… otherwise it's safe. And I also thought..." he shrugged again, clearly uncomfortable. "I thought a little sunlight might, uh, might do you some good."

"Sunlight," she echoed, looking toward the window. "Yes, it's beautiful. I'd forgotten _how_ beautiful. Thank you."

His eyes flashed back to hers. "You don't have to thank me, Granger. It's not much -"

"No, it's _not_ much," she interjected, "but it's something. I can see the sky, I... I'm safe from... from _them_ -" a shudder ripped through her body as she spoke. "It's _something,_ and I have you to thank, so -"

"I said, don't thank me!" He seemed, quite suddenly, on the verge of outright shouting. "Goddamnit, Granger, can't you see, you're still a prisoner; you have nothing to thank me for! All of this -" he swept an arm around the room - "is as much for me as for it is for you; that other place was disgusting! I hated going down there! God! So don't think for a minute that I did this out of the goodness of my heart - you'd be _dangerously_ mistaken. What I want from you hasn't changed." Moving so fast she barely registered that he'd moved at all, he was, quite suddenly, right there beside her – half _atop_ her - on the bed. He shoved her down on the coverlet, one of his hands burying itself in her hair, the other going to her waist and then traveling higher, over her ribcage and up to the swell of her breast, ruching up the fabric of her shirt as he went; then catching her nipple between two fingers and squeezing until she gasped and arched right up off the mattress.

"What I want from you is the same as it ever was," he repeated, his voice going hoarse now, "and that's a good fuck at the end of a long day fighting." Shifting his weight, he drove one knee between her thighs, then the other; spreading them far apart.

"That's all you are to me, Granger," he said, before lowering his mouth to plant a hard, bruising, marking kiss at the base of her throat, even as he slipped a hand between their bodies, shoving fabric out of the way and aligning himself to plunge into her. "What do you think about that?"

And she shocked them both – herself _and_ him. Because instead of recoiling, as he had clearly expected her to, she wrapped her legs around him and reached up to grab his shoulders, her nails biting into him, holding him effectively in place. They stared at each other, breathing hard, for a long moment. Then -

"I think," she said, quite slowly and deliberately, "that I'm still better off than I was… and I have you to thank for it… and so – I'm still – _grateful_."

His eyes went wide and he tensed against her. For a second or two it seemed, in his shock and bafflement, that he was on the verge of ripping himself away. That didn't happen, though, in large part because Hermione didn't _permit_ it to happen. She flexed her legs, which were already locked high around his waist – flexed them hard – and at the same time surged her own body upward, fusing the two of them together and impaling _herself_ upon him.

They both gasped explosively, and then she pulled him down into a kiss and they were moving together; mutual participants in this act for the very first time. And when he paused, some moments later, to brush tears from her cheeks that she hadn't even known were there, she never even slowed down. Just closed her eyes, buried her flushed face in his shoulder, and moved even more quickly, more frantically, against him.

She exhausted herself utterly and fell asleep in his arms almost the moment it was over.

And he let her.

OoOoO

More time passed. She couldn't say how much. In reality it was about six weeks – but to Hermione it might as well have been a lifetime. Food continued to appear daily. She knocked on the side of the tub as instructed - twice for warm water, three times for hot - whenever she wanted to bathe. She devoured the books on her tiny bookshelf, and every so often, new titles appeared; behind-the-scenes magic, just as with the meals and baths. After a while, the alarm clock Draco had brought her stopped working; the batteries, she assumed, must have run out. She didn't say anything about it. She doubted that he'd have much success in procuring replacement batteries of the right size and voltage even if he'd wanted to; the whole concept was so completely alien to him. Perhaps he could have magicked the clock into working again, but the real truth of the matter was that watching the minutes and hours tick slowly by had been depressing for her anyway. The clock had been a nice gesture, but she didn't miss it.

He brought her other things though. Still more books... a quill, some ink and parchment... chocolate frogs and peppermint humbugs. And she came to anticipate his visits more and more – it was relief from the constant boredom and loneliness of her captivity, for one thing; he was the only human contact she'd had in… well she didn't honestly know how long. She'd lost track.

There was more to it than that, however, if she was going to be perfectly honest with herself. Draco was… well, he was _growing_ on her. She never could have anticipated it, she still didn't understand it, the rational part of her mind protested that it was unhealthy; in fact, it was downright sick… and yet, despite all of this, there it was.

God help her, she found herself looking forward to his visits, reacting with a gratitude that bordered on pathetic when he deigned to share a meal with her, engaging him in conversation and even growing bold enough, over time, to challenge him on some of his views. She worried about him being wounded in battle. And the sex – she no longer lay passive, and she no longer cried. She'd become, over time, as active a participant as _he_ was. As active, and at the pinnacle of their encounters, as sated.

Draco had saved her from hell. And while it was true that the state she was existing in now was limbo at best, well, at the end of the day, limbo was a whole lot more pleasant than hell.

And so things went... it could almost be said that they'd settled into a _routine_... and there was no telling how long they might have continued that way.

Except then, she got sick.

That changed _everything._

And fast.

OoOoO

The first morning she woke up nauseous, she didn't think much of it. Draco didn't visit her that day so she was left to cope on her own, but it didn't really matter because the sickness passed by midday anyway. But it happened a second time, and a third... even a fourth. And it wasn't the sustained misery of the flu or any kind of illness like that. It was always in the morning. Always over and done with, within those first few hours of the day. It was like nothing she'd ever experienced before. And _that_ was when it occurred to her - seriously belatedly - that she hadn't had her "monthly visitor" since she'd been captured.

Merlin, how could she not have _noticed_ that before!

Yes, her mind had been focused on... other things. On just coping, just enduring, just _living_ through this captivity. But oh God, to miss a sign like _that_…

Then again, what good would it have done to have realized it sooner? How could the situation possibly have been remedied? There was nothing she could have done. There was nothing she _could_ do, now. _Nothing_. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Oh, _God_.

When Draco came in some three hours later it was to find her balled up in a corner of the room, legs pulled up to her chest and face buried in her knees, shivering and sobbing. The last time she'd been in a state like this had been weeks ago, when she'd still been in the other cell. When she'd still been three-way joint property.

She heard him enter but didn't look up. As for Draco, he stopped where he was, stock still for a moment, then crossed the room in a couple of quick strides, dropped to his knees beside her, and folded her into his arms without a word. It had to be twenty minutes that he knelt there holding her, stroking her hair and rubbing her back, just letting her get it all out. At long last, when her sobs gave way to ragged, hitching little breaths, and she lay utterly spent like a ragdoll in his arms, he murmured just a single word –

"What?"

She gulped in a deep, unsteady breath. "I think I... I... I'm... oh... guh... God... oh, _God_..." she wrenched herself free of him. "I'm gonna be sick."

Hurling herself across the room, she reached the commode only just in time. She'd already been ill that day and had very little left to bring up... but she heaved for a long, long time. She could barely keep herself upright by the end of it, she was so physically exhausted and emotionally drained. She tried to stand and Draco was, fortunately, right there to catch her - otherwise she would have collapsed back to the floor. She was shaking as he carried her over to the bed, set her down and then, while pouring her a glass of water from the pitcher on the nightstand, asked again, "Granger... _what?_"

"I... think... I..." each word was punctuated by a heaving pull for breath; she was nearly hyperventilating. He handed her the glass; she drank deeply, spilling some of the water as she did so because her hand was so unsteady; then swallowed hard and tried again. "I... uhm... think I might be pre-heh-hegnant!" and dissolved entirely into tears again. He'd been rubbing her back again - she felt his hand clench, abruptly, into a fist.

"You what! _What?_ Why would you _think_ that!" When she didn't answer him immediately, he grabbed her chin and forced her to raise her face to his; to meet his eyes.

"Granger. _Tell_ me."

"I don't... I... God, does it matter _why_ I think it! I _think_ it! Just... just please, you have your wand, right? Just check - I have to know! _Please!_"

"All right." He raked a hand distractedly through his hair. "All right, I... yeah. Of course. Hold on."

The spell was simple, and the answer was clear. Hermione made a sound somewhere between a groan and a strangled scream and dropped her face into her hands, clenching them in her hair in a gesture of despair nearly beyond endurance.

"Granger, don't. Don't, we'll... shit. _Shit!_ God fucking _damn_ it!" He virtually launched himself off the bed; paced to the foot of it and back, once - twice. Then abruptly kicked over the nightstand with a shouted, "FUCK!"

Hermione, meantime, had slid off the edge of the bed to land on her knees on the floor, burying her face in the mattress; one hand still clenched in her thick, dark hair and the other fisted in the bedclothes, opening and closing over and over again as if she were _literally_ trying - and failing - to get a grasp on the situation.

"All right, don't. Don't do that, come on, Granger, don't." A second later he was there again, crouching beside her and gathering her up, lifting her onto the bed again. She stiffened against him, tried to resist, but he pressed her down, into the pillows. "Granger, stop. _Stop._"

Finally she lay still, panting, staring up at him with eyes that were dark, and hollow, and haunted, and utterly, perfectly desolate.

She wasn't crying anymore, and that almost made things worse. Her voice, when she spoke, was a bit on the raspy side, but steady again. It was also as dull as lifeless as lead.

"I want to die."

"Granger -"

"I can't. I can't do this. What... what if..." She trailed off for a moment, then choked out, "what if it's one of _theirs?_ I'd rather be dead." She let her eyes fall shut. "I can't. I _won't._ Not if it's one of theirs. Malfoy... Malfoy..."

"Shh. Don't think about that. We'll... Fuck. I don't know _what_ we'll do but I'll think of something, all right? Just... you need to rest. Uhm. Here."

She felt him pressing something into her hand; opened her eyes to see that it was a cup of warm, amber colored, broth-like liquid. She couldn't imagine where it had come from - he had to have conjured it out of thin air. "Looks like you haven't kept anything down all day," he said. "Plus you're warm - I think you're actually running a bit of a fever. This will help on both those counts - and it'll make you sleep. Just... Granger, just drink the damn potion and... I swear to you, I'll figure something out. All right?"

Too exhausted to argue, she just nodded dumbly - and downed the potion at a swallow.

She kept her eyes open, and fixed on his face for as long as she could. Which, really, was only a matter of seconds. Just before passing out completely, she thought - well no, she _almost_ thought - that he leaned in and cupped her face in his hand, stroking her cheek with his thumb. Whispering that he would make this right. Somehow, God _help_ him, he would make this alright.

Then everything was blackness.

OoOoO

"Granger. _Granger._" She was being shaken. "Granger, up. Come on, get _up_."

She blinked her eyes slowly open; she was incredibly groggy. Whatever it was that he'd given her to drink, it sure as hell had packed a wallop. She felt... she felt... well, _cottony_. As if there were layers and layers of thick cotton batting wrapped around and around her mind. Separating it from her body. Separating _her_ from _reality_.

"Mal...foy?" Her voice was thick; croaky. Hardly _her_ voice at all. "What -?"

"Get up, I said. There's no time, come _on_."

She pushed herself into a sitting position, the covers pooling around her waist. Shook her head in attempt to rouse herself; pushed her tousled hair back, out of her face. "No time for what?" She fixed her eyes on his face and was taken aback; there was a glittering, almost _feverish_ light in his pale eyes that she'd never seen before, and found instantly disturbing. "Malfoy, what's going on?"

"We're leaving." In a series of movements so quick and fluid that they almost seemed to be a single motion, he yanked the rest of the covers from her, tossing them over the foot of the bed to puddle on the floor, then took her by the shoulders and pulled her to the edge of the bed, and flung a cloak over her shoulders. "No questions, there isn't time." Now he had his wand in his hand, casting a Disillusionment Charm first on her and then on himself. Her wide, shocked eyes then took in the fact that there was a broom – an sleek and obscenely expensive _racing_ broom, by the look of it – propped against the wall, right beneath the small window.

Did all this mean what she was starting to think it meant? But that wasn't possible. It wasn't _possible! Was_ it?

"Wait, what… what are you –?"

"I said, no time for questions." He was speaking through gritted teeth. He pulled her to her feet, at the same time stashing his wand away and extending a hand toward the broomstick; it came to him as obediently as a well-trained animal, and without his issuing any sort of command at all that she could see. It seemed to be responding to his will alone.

"Mount up behind me. Granger! _Right now!_"

"We can't be leaving." She found herself completely unable to process what was happening; at a loss for how to take all this in. "How can we just... be _leaving?_"

"You'll see in a minute, won't you, if you'll just mount the damn broom! Granger!" He took her by the shoulders, peered for just a heartbeat's worth of time into her eyes. She saw at least half a dozen different emotions roiling just beneath the surface of his face. Exasperation, fear, defiance, determination, impatience, and... something else. _What_ else? She couldn't put her finger on it. What was going _on?_

Then he gave her a single, very brisk shake - hard enough to make her teeth rattle. "There - is - no - time - to - be - _thick!_" He turned the broom, positioning it so that when they launched, it would shoot straight at, and through, the window. Threw one leg over. "Throw your leg over and grab me. Tight. Granger, NOW!"

She did so, still in a daze. Locked her arms around his waist from behind.

"We sure as hell can't Apparate out of here," he said then, "and we sure as hell can't just _walk_ out, so we're gonna fly out. There will be a pursuit." He was speaking in a flat, matter-of-fact tone of voice that she found bizarre. In fact, she was finding this entire scenario bizarre. Surreal, even. "It'll be immediate, and it'll be brutal. The second we're airborne, I'm handing you my wand. You're gonna have to use it to hold them off as best you can, while I navigate. Don't pull your punches, either - shoot to kill. To _kill_. Because you'd damn well better believe that's what _they'll_ be doing. Got that, Granger?"

She nodded her head, before realizing that, positioned in front of her as he now was, he couldn't see the gesture. She swallowed hard; swallowed back bile, in fact. "Um... yeah." Her voice was little more than a croak. 'Yeah, okay. Are we... are we really doing this?"

In answer, he pulled his wand back out, leveled it at the window, took a deep breath, and shouted, "_Reducto Maximo!_"

The force of the spell was such that not only was the window itself obliterated, but an entire segment of the out was blasted into rubble. Hermione screamed and buried her face in his shoulder - and then they were rocketing skyward with breathtaking, barely credible speed.

Even with the cloak he'd thrown over her, it was jarringly, bitingly cold. Arms wrapped around Draco from behind, her fingers went numb almost immediately where she was simultaneously hanging onto him for dear life, and desperately clutching his wand. She had just the briefest instant in which to hope that maybe, just maybe, Draco had been mistaken about their being pursued - then they passed through some sort of magical interference - it made her skin tingle and her hair stand on end - and all of a sudden, ear-piercing sirens were shrieking into the night.

"We just crossed the boundary of Death Eater land," Draco shouted back at her. "They'll be onto us now - get ready! You've got to use the wand to defend us so I can concentrate on flying - also, let me know where they're coming from so I can try to avoid them! Okay? Granger - _okay!_"

"Okay!" It was gasped more than spoken - and then, just as Draco had predicted, other forms were materializing out of the night. A jet of wicked-looking light shot past them; then another, missing them by inches. Hermione screamed again - the impulse was to bury her face in his shoulder once more; not look, not do anything but hang on and pray for this to be over. But she couldn't do that. That would doom them both.

"GRANGER! Fire back! NOW!"

"Okay." This time she no more than breathed it. She swallowed hard, then twisted in the direction from which the volley of hostile spells had come, and started to return fire.


	5. Chapter 5

The next several moments were a blur. There had to be at least a dozen Death Eaters tailing them, as close as she could tell. She managed to knock three of them off their brooms with stunning spells as Draco shouted at her to _KILL them, Granger, God DAMN it, FUCK Stupify - you need to KILL them!_

She _was_ killing them, though; that was the thing. A stunning spell was a death sentence to someone this high up in the air. She was killing them and she knew it - she'd never actually killed anybody before, not even in the heat of battle. She'd always used non-lethal spells. She'd expected it to be difficult, this business of knowing that she was ending someone else's life - but really, it wasn't. They were just shapes in the dark. Shapes in the dark that would kill _her_ if she didn't get to them first. Every time she hit one of them and watched him (at least, she assumed they were all "him" - most Death Eaters were) fall soundlessly away, she found herself hoping – hoping _furiously_ - that it was Nott or Zabini. Or the pig-eyed fellow they'd brought with them that time. The time that Draco had bought her away from them. Had saved her.

God, she hoped that so damn much.

In between firing spells at their pursuers, she was screaming directions to Draco. _There are three on the left! There are four on the right! Pull up! Brake left! DIVE!_

She only suggested they dive once. The free-fall he threw them into was so sheerly terrifying it nearly robbed her of her ability for rational thought. It did, however, throw the Death Eaters off their trail, at least for a few precious seconds. "We're almost there!" Draco yelled to her over his shoulder.

They were flying low now, low and fast, skimming treetops. Hermione could see a clearing ahead - a clearing that was empty, and then suddenly, an instant later, wasn't anymore. She couldn't hear the whipcrack sound that accompanies Apparition because she and Draco were still some distance away - but she saw the flashes, and then there were people standing there; ten or twelve people, at least.

"Thank God," Draco muttered, starting to slow their breakneck speed, and that was when one of their pursuers came barreling up beside them - Hermione hadn't even been aware of his approach, so riveted had she been on the figures below - and shot off a curse at nearly point blank range.

Draco, who'd become aware of this new threat just a fraction of a second before she did, wrenched the broomstick sharply to one side. His evasive action was enough to keep the hit from being lethal, but not enough to save her altogether. Pain like fire ripped through her left shoulder; it had been a cutting curse and had ripped open a deep, jagged gash.

She screamed and almost slipped off the broom; her left arm had gone utterly and instantly numb, and an incredibly powerful wave of lightheadedness swept over her. She slumped against Draco, only barely managing to keep hold of his wand with her right hand, and started listing to the side.

"Granger!" His voice was sheer panic. "Granger, no! NO!"

Even as her left arm fell limp to her side, she managed to drag her right hand higher, fisting it in the fabric of his shirt and holding on for dear life. She was still clutching the wand, but unable, now, to make any further use of it. A heartbeat later, though, the Death Eater that had managed to get so disastrously close to them was blasted off his broom by a spell that had not originated with either her _or _Draco. And it most certainly was not a stunning spell. The people on the ground were firing now. Hermione could hear them shouting. But everything was starting to go hazy.

"Sorry, Malfoy," she mumbled, her head falling against his shoulder. Her own shoulder felt like hot lead, and her sleeve had gone all warm and tacky. "I'm suh... sorry..."

"Fuck that, Granger, do not let go!" His voice was pure fury. "We're almost there, so hang on, do you hear me! I didn't do all this for NOTHING! Do NOT let go!" They were almost directly over the clearing now. He plunged them into another free-fall.

This time she couldn't even find it in herself to scream.

OoOoO

At the last moment, he yanked up on the broomstick - slowing their descent just enough so that their impact with the earth couldn't exactly be called a crash landing. Not exactly. It was close though.

It was damn close.

He twisted around at the last second, catlike, in order to grab Hermione to him. This action caused them to thud down on their sides instead of head-on, and they rolled a couple of times before they came to a true halt.

He was sprawled on his back, Hermione lying draped over him, clasped to his chest. She felt him heave beneath her, once - twice - pulling for breath. It seemed that the impact had knocked the wind out of him. Nevertheless, he was the one who regained the ability for coherent speech first.

"Granger." Shifting her slightly sideways, he struggled into a sitting position. He was panting from exertion. "_Granger_." He started looking her over through narrowed silver eyes; scanning quickly for damage. "Where are you hit? How badly are you hurt?"

"I -" she was gasping for breath herself. "It was just my shoulder, I'm bleeding but I don't think it's -"

"SHIT! Get _DOWN!_" Faster than she could comprehend, he was rolling with her again; the world seemed to spin and turn upside down, and then _she_ was the one flat on her back, with him crouched protectively over her, and hostile spells were hitting the ground all around them; vicious streaks of light in poisonous colors throwing up clods of dirt and grass wherever they struck down, a couple of them causing the ground to actually _sizzle._

Someone was shouting nearby, "- _Up,_ get a barrier up around them, for fuck's sake, NOW!" It was a voice she recognized; a voice she _knew_. Could it be? Dear sweet God, could it actually _be?_

"Harry...?" she breathed, unable to make sense of it - everything was happening so fast. Harry... was _here?_ How? HOW?

A split second later a protective shield was thrown into place above them, deflecting the hailstorm of curses raining down from above. Hermione couldn't see who was responsible for the forcefield, but considering how chaotic the entire situation had become, it was done with remarkable speed and accuracy.

But still not quite quickly enough.

One final spell got through, in the nanosecond before the shield took effect - and this one didn't hit ground, as its predecessors had. Hermione knew that Draco'd been hit because of the way his body snapped tight against hers, his fingers digging into her with a sudden painful intensity - but more even than that, she saw it in his eyes.

They flew wide and in the heartbeat's worth of time before he slammed his guard back into place, she saw that this was bad. This was very bad.

"No," she said hoarsely. "_No!_"

"It's fine, Granger," he said, but he was speaking through clenched teeth. "Come on. Get up."

"No, you're -"

"I said I'm FINE." He got to his feet, pulling her up with him. Then staggered, falling sideways into her. For just a moment, _she_ was the one who was supporting _him_ - but then he mastered himself again.

"Malf -"

"Come on." He seized her by the arm - the uninjured one - and pulled her toward the small knot of people who stood a short distance away, ranged in a loose circular formation with their backs to each other, protected, so that they could fire into the air at the Death Eaters that were now circling above them.

The forcefield that had been thrown into place around them seemed to travel with them, because though the air was thick with flying spells and curses, they were left untouched. But even so, they were still several yards away from their newly arrived defenders when an intense wave of faintness, liberally tinged with nausea, engulfed Hermione. Her knees buckled and would have spilled her to the ground were Draco still not holding onto her arm.

As it was, he had to act fast to prevent her full collapse. Swearing a blue streak, he caught her and swung her up into his arms - wincing and stumbling as he did so. His jaw was clenched in a hard, tight line; his face paler than she'd ever seen it. And for Draco Malfoy, who wore "pale" like a fashion statement, that was saying something.

But everything was sliding out of focus. Her entire left arm was a warm, heavy, useless weight - the sleeve of her shirt utterly soaked. Tacky. Crimson. Vaguely, distantly, it occurred to her that she was losing a lot of blood. A _lot_. Too much.

"Hold... on, Granger," Draco muttered, even though it seemed that speech was becoming an issue for him. His voice was thick; fuzzy around the edges. "You're almost safe."

And then they were there, right in the midst of the people who were holding the Death Eaters at bay. Draco shouldered his way into the protected space at the center of the circle, before sinking to his knees and easing Hermione to the brown, trampled grass.

A second later he was ripping at the blood-saturated fabric of her sleeve, causing her to choke out a little cry of pain.

"Granger, I gotta see how bad it is -"

"It's just my arm," she protested, trying to jerk away from him. Not succeeding. "What about you, _you're_ hurt too!"

"I fucking told you I'm fine -"

"No you're not, I _saw_ you -"

"Will you just _shut the fuck up and let me LOOK!_"

Theirs weren't the only voices flying back and forth, either. In addition to the multitude of spells that were being cast and deflected, a fractured conversation was taking place among the people now grouped around and above them.

"- check, make sure it's really her!"

"Yeah, don't trust that -"

"What's our exit strategy? There are too many of them!"

"Kingsley, can I -"

"Yeah Ron, go on. We've got it covered, for a minute anyway -"

And then, incredibly, _unbelievably_, he was there - _right_ there, dropping to one knee beside her, opposite Draco. Ron. _Her_ Ron. It was almost more than she could comprehend. Her head was spinning.

He looked awful. Almost unrecognizably awful. Looked like he'd aged ten years since she'd seen him last. Face gaunt and lined; eyes haunted. Hair too long, five-o'clock-shadow clinging to his cheeks and jaw.

"Hermione?" His voice was hoarse almost to the point of being strangled. He raised a shaking hand to cup her cheek.

"Don't take anything for granted, Ron!" someone shouted down. Distantly, she thought it sounded like either Fred or George. "Make sure! You have to make _sure!_"

"Right." Ron swallowed hard; raked his other hand through his hair. "What... what did I give you for Christmas last year?"

"I... uhm... a silver pendant shaped like a Quidditch broom... and a... a gift certificate to Flourish & Blotts."

His face crumpled then; he was crying. She'd never seen Ron cry, never. "It's her," he shouted, and then he was pulling her to him, engulfing her in his arms, and she could feel that his whole body was shaking just as his hands were; _all_ of him shaking, and hard.

He was actually rocking her a little, back and forth, and sobbing into her hair, "Oh God, Hermione, I thought I'd lost you, Hermione, Hermione, oh my _God_..."

But there was too much going on around them for Hermione to be able to lose herself in the moment. The shouts of their defenders were becoming increasingly panicked -

"- more of them arriving!"

"Must be twenty of them up there at least!"

"How are we gonna get out of here! What the hell are we gonna do!"

"- don't know, just keep bringing them _down!_"

And then, at a much closer proximity, there was Draco, who was now shouting at _Ron_.

"- all very touching, Weasley, but she's hurt! You have to get her some medical attention, do you hear me! You have to get her help!"

"Hurt...?" Ron sounded nearly as dazed as she felt. He disengaged from their embrace, holding her gently at arm's length, looking her over. "Hurt how? Where?"

"Are you fucking BLIND! Look at her arm! She's losing blood. _Weasley_." Quite suddenly, Draco had Ron by a fistful of the redhead's shirt, bringing the two of them nearly nose to nose. "There are three things," Draco said, "that you have to do now. And you have to do them quick. First, get her the FUCK out of here. Second, get her the help she needs. And third - _Weasley!_ Are you bloody well _listening!_ - Third is a paternity spell. You _have to perform a paternity spell_. Do you understand me? Get her out of here. Get her well. And then, a paternity spell. It's simple. All right?"

"Pa... paternity... Malfoy, _what?_"

"Goddamnit, Weasley, just DO it. Now get her out of here. I'll cover you." Reaching over, he seized his wand, which was still clutched in Hermione's right hand, and pulled it gently but firmly away from her. He glanced up at the sky, where an increasing number of dark figures were circling. "I'll cover all of you," he said. "I should be able to hold them off, long enough for you and everyone else to Apparate away."

He stood then - swayed on his feet a second - but caught himself, gritting his teeth. He thrust one arm high in the air, pointing his wand straight up, and began muttering what sounded like an incredibly complex incantation.

Ron, meantime, unfolded to his feet, pulling Hermione up with him. He still had her clasped tightly against him - she would not have been able to stand on her own.

"Malfoy," Ron said, his voice still croaky and unsteady with emotion. "Why?"

Draco's silver eyes settled briefly on Ron's dark ones. "Why did I return her? Trust me, Weasley, it had fuck-ALL to do with _you_. And that's really all I've got to say about it. Now shut up - you're distracting me."

He closed his eyes, brow furrowing, and with a few more murmured words, completed the incantation. There was a whooshing sound and a sudden swift breeze that ruffled his sugar-white hair, lifting it away from his face. Then a beam of light shot from his wand into the air with such force that he staggered - but again, managed to steady himself.

The light was violently green in color, and incredibly bright. It arced outward in all directions, from where Draco stood almost dead-center in the circle of people on the ground, quickly forming an umbrella-like shield that was far larger and more substantial than the one that had been thrown over him and Hermione earlier.

The people on the ground stopped firing as it became apparent that they were protected now. A couple of them braced their hands on their knees, panting for breath; a couple more dropped to their knees to tend fallen comrades. Harry raced to where Ron was standing with Hermione and pulled her into a crushing embrace, before turning to face Draco.

"How are you doing this, Malfoy?" he demanded. "I've never seen a spell like this before."

"Not... surprising, Potter," Draco panted, his breath - and words - now choppy and labored. "It's dark... magic and... it's incredibly draining. So get... the hell out of... here now. Can't do... this much longer."

As if to punctuate his words, he then abruptly slipped to his knees - but his wand arm remained steady, and the glowing green umbrella-shield barely flickered.

"All right, everyone go!" Harry yelled. "Get the injured to St. Mungo's, then we meet up again to debrief - you all know the coordinates. See you on the other side. GO!"

They began to disappear, popping out of existence in two's and three's. "Do you want the coordinates, Malfoy?" Harry asked.

"Thanks, Potter but... I think not," Draco said. "I don't suppose you've noticed, but I'm... a little wrapped up at the moment."

"But if you wanted to follow -"

"Potter would you just GO! I can't... keep this up... I _can't_."

"All right." Harry stared hard at him for a moment more. He, Ron and Hermione were now the only ones left beneath the shield, save Draco himself. "I don't know what brought this on, Malfoy," he said then, "but _thank_ you."

Draco responded with a short, bitter bark of laughter. "It's nothing... and I mean NOTHING... to do with _you_, Potter," he said. "Seriously. So you can save... your thanks."

"I don't doubt that for a second," Harry replied, "but _whatever_ the motive, it benefits me just the same... so the thanks are yours. Keep them." He turned to Ron then. "All right?"

"Yeah," Ron said. "Right behind you, mate."

Harry nodded - and vanished.

"Seriously, Malfoy," Ron said then, "why?"

Again that bitter, humorless "Hah!" of laughter. "Seriously, Weasley, you don't want to know. You DON'T. Want to know. Oh, but here -" He plunged his free hand into his trouser pocket; groped about for a minute, then pulled it out, fisted around something. "Catch -" he threw a very small, silvery object toward where Ron and Hermione still stood locked together, and Ron - ever the Keeper - snatched it out of the air with ease.

In that instant, Draco locked his pale gaze not on Ron's eyes, but Hermione's. "I got it back for you," he said, and Hermione looked down to see her engagement ring sparkling in the palm of Ron's hand.

Time seemed to slow down for Hermione as she stared at the ring. She couldn't believe she was seeing it again - she hadn't thought she'd _ever_ see it again. And then the implications hit her - why had he returned it _now_, why had he chosen this particular moment to give it back? It could only mean -

"But you _are_ coming too?" she said slowly, raising her eyes back to Draco's. "You are coming _with_ us - right?"

She read his answer in his face.

"NO!" She wrenched herself free of Ron. "No, you're _coming_, there's no reason why you can't, you don't even _need_ the coordinates, you can just side-along with us -"

She threw herself toward him, but he surprised her by flinching away.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

She stopped just a couple of feet shy of him, arrested by his shout, then slipped to her own knees, their eyes locked together.

"Granger," he said more gently, "dark magic, remember? You _cannot_ touch me while I'm performing this spell. Some of its essence would be channeled over to you. It would hurt you - it might _kill_ you. You have to go."

"But -"

"Granger, there's nothing to argue. All you've got is a slice to your shoulder - you're gonna be just fine, if your idiot boyfriend ever gets you to hospital. But I got hit too, remember? And I gotta say – _mine_ was a bastard. There's nothing... that can be done... I'm on borrowed time. And that time is running out."

He looked past her. "Weasley -" his voice was now colored with desperation - "get her out of here. Get her _out_ of here. _Please_."

She didn't even hear Ron come up behind her; a second later he was just there, wrapping his arms around her and murmuring, "come on, love - we gotta go."

And God, it had been so long since she'd felt this safe, snug in his arms, and God, she had missed this, missed it _wildly_ - the sound of his voice, the _smell_ of him - cut grass and leather and chocolate, and something else that was harder to define, but wholesome, all so wholesome and _good_ - but her mind was screaming no, No, NO - they couldn't leave _Draco_ like this, they couldn't, _could NOT_ -

And she remembered then, suddenly and with crystal clarity, a thought she'd had on her very first day of captivity, watching Draco interact with Zabini and Nott -

_She wondered whether any of them had ever really loved ANYTHING other than their own hides... were even CAPABLE of love as she knew it; a love that could compel a person to acts of deep courage, selflessness and sacrifice_.

Her question was being answered for her; _another_ thing she'd never thought would happen, but she didn't want it answered this way, not like this, _nononoNO_ -

Ron was standing with her again, preparing to Apparate. "Malfoy," she sobbed out one last time, "_Draco_ - PLEASE!"

"Remember... what I said, Weasley." Draco was looking past her, looking at Ron again, each word appearing, now, to be a supreme effort. "Puh... paternity. Spell. And Granger -" he met her eyes again, for the last time. Graced her with a tiny shrug and the ghost of a smile. "Goodbye."

Then a great many things happened all at once. Draco reached the end of his endurance, his entire body sagging and his arm dropping to his side; wand falling to the grass. The dome-like green shield that he'd been holding in place for the last several moments flickered once - twice - then winked out of existence entirely. There were shouts from the sky and then the Death Eaters - there had to be close to thirty of them now, Hermione thought sickly - thirty at _least_ - were diving, letting loose with an absolute _barrage_ of curses as they came. Draco, who'd held her gaze all this time, let his own pale eyes fall shut, bowing his head toward the ground, that small, subtle smile still playing around his lips -

And the familiar clutching, suffocating darkness of side-along Apparition closed over her as Ron spun them both away. And she was screaming "Draco, Draco, Draco, NO!"

And then it was over. All over. She was, quite abruptly, miles away. And safe. Protected. Sheltered. Loved.

And Draco? Well, _he_ was simply...

_Gone._

OoOoO

_She is sleeping. She's cried herself to sleep, the tear tracks silver against her pale face. Well, pale except for where it is flushed, high up along her cheekbones. She's definitely running a temperature; he considers summoning the healer elves but decides against it. At least not yet. There's something he wants... no, NEEDS to do first._

_He must be quiet because he really doesn't want to wake her. He wants her to stay asleep for this, in case it results in news she really wouldn't want to hear. He should know first, before she does. Then, depending on what is revealed, he'll figure out his next step. Will it involve telling her, or keeping her in the dark?_

_Well, that depends on the result._

_He pulls out his wand, praying without realizing he's praying. Or no, that's not quite right. It's more that he's simply not ADMITTING to himself that he's praying. Not admitting to himself how much this matters to him - how deeply, deeply vested he's become in her._

_Because that wasn't supposed to happen. He wasn't supposed to care._

_He thinks he's done a pretty good job overall, in convincing her that he _doesn't_ care - that he's just looking out for her because she has value as a hostage._

_Lying to _himself_, though... well, that's harder._

_He's not sure exactly when it started, and really, that hardly matters. What matters is that the mantra which is running through his mind as he places the tip of his wand - gently, so gently, mustn't wake her - against her stomach is,_ Let it be mine, let it be mine, please God just let it be mine. I don't think she can handle it's being one of theirs... I think that'll be too much for her. I think that might even kill her, for fuck's sake. So please... please... just let it be mine. I'll get her out of here somehow; I'll do right by her. I know she's broken and I know I'm part of the reason, but I'll spend the rest of my life putting her back together if you'll only let it be mine. Let it be mine.

Let it be mine.

_He whispers the words of the paternity spell. The answer appears in the air. All the strength runs out of his legs. He actually collapses to his knees on the floor, staring in shock at the letters that hang in the air, written in light, shimmering and already starting to fade. The letters that form a word. The word that is a name. Trying to make sense of it. Trying..._

_It can't be. It can't BE. HOW can that BE?_

_It is Draco's turn to lose some time._

_When he comes back to himself, he's sitting on the floor, his back against the bed where she sleeps on unsuspecting, his elbows braced on his knees and his head cradled in his hands. He doesn't know how long he's been like that. But he knows what he has to do._

_There's only one thing left that he CAN do. Now that he knows what he knows._

_It was delusional anyway, to think that he could be the one to put her back together... when he is one of the people responsible for breaking her in the first place. The very notion was ridiculous. _Impossible_. He knows that she's starting to fancy herself in love with him - and he also knows that it isn't real. There's no possible way that the sick, twisted relationship he'd engaged in with her could ever result in true love. What she feels is a product of her captivity; she has started to cling to him because he's treated her better than the others did. _

_That doesn't mean that he's treated her WELL. He doesn't deserve her misplaced loyalty, _much_ less her love. He knows this too._

_He picks himself up and sinks down on the edge of the bed. His mind is racing ahead now, already gauging distance, weighing risks, noting variables that could affect the outcome of his newly hatched plan. He sees nothing that gives him cause to reconsider. He thinks he can do it. There will be pursuit - he doesn't have any illusions about that, or about the likelihood of his returning from this trip. But as far as reaching a safe place to make the hand-off, well he's confident that _that_, at least, can be accomplished. Assuming his Patronus reaches scar-head and weasel all right. And assuming they respond. But of course they'll respond. Of _course_ they will. All his Patronus will have to do is speak the word 'Granger', and they'll be there with bells on._

_So, it's time. In fact, now that his mind is made up, there's no time to _lose_. It's the middle of the night; the darkest watches before the dawn. The defenses around this place are never low, but they are lower now than at any other time of day. _

_If he's going to attempt such a reckless, suicidal act as this, then they should be moving _right now;_ every second counts. Still, he lingers a little longer. He's looking at her again now, and is transfixed by her sleeping face. He leans close over her; brushes a stray curl off her forehead. Her brows knit together, a little furrow appearing. She whimpers in her sleep. She has no peace anymore, even in dreams. Which is terribly sad. He puts his lips close to her ear._

"_I'm sorry, Hermione," he whispers. "I'm sorry for what you've been through, and I'm sorry for my part in it. I can't undo it, or I would. But I... I can do the next best thing. I can end it now. I can return you to where you belong, to the people who love you, who... who have a _right_ to love you. Because I don't. It's almost over - I swear to you. By morning you'll be safe. You'll be... cherished again, like you were in that memory you showed me. You deserve that. You deserve that for your whole life. Don't ever think otherwise. Please." He pulls back a little, looks at her for just a second more. _

_Leans in again - brushes her temple with his lips. Not an actual kiss, no... but close. Close enough. "You're brilliant and you're strong and you'll recover in time," he murmurs, "I know you will. It'll take a while, but all of this will start to fade, especially once you realize it's Weasley's child you're carrying. You'll have a good life. Goodbye, Hermione."_

_He stands - concentrates for a moment - conjures his Patronus. Sends it racing ahead with his message. It shoots straight up through the ceiling of the cell in a blur of silver and is gone._

_Things are in motion now. It's time._

_He schools his face into a calm, emotionless mask. Bends over the bed again. Grips her by the shoulders and gives her a single, sharp shake._

"_Get up, Granger," he says curtly as she blinks her eyes slowly open. "Come on. We're leaving."_

_He knows what's coming. The knowledge changes nothing. _

_It's time to go_.

OoOoO

And there's one more thing she'll never know. In that very last instant before a dozen horrendous curses converged on him at once, he took the memory she'd shown him, of that brief and shining, perfect Hogsmeade moment from her seventh year, and he made it his own. Just as she had done over and over to protect herself during the course of her captivity, he spun it around himself quickly and absolutely, making it solid; impenetrable; airtight. Only this time it wasn't Weasley who was gathering her up, swinging her around, confessing his love, pulling her in for a kiss.

It was him.

In his very last instant of existence on earth, it was _him_.

OOoOoOO

ooOooOoo

OOoOoOO

**A/N: Thus concludes Pieces. If you read my opening author's note at the beginning of Chapter 1, you know that this was written for an exchange. That means it had to fulfill specific criteria given to me by the person who requested it. That criteria is below; I hope most people will feel that I managed to respect it while still "keeping things real" - i.e., I personally don't feel that TRUE, reciprocal love could ever be born out of the circumstances described in this fic. So I put in my own twist in order to try and reconcile my feelings on the subject with the criteria I was given. For those who were surprised by how quickly things moved along, that was again a result of the exchange. Participants are given a limited amount of time to complete and submit their work (usually about 6-8 weeks) and therefore many fics that are born of exchanges are, by their very nature, "condensed". Anyway, thanks for reading; hope you enjoyed it, darkness and all!  
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**Request:**

**Preferred rating:** I'd say R-NC17

**Describe what you'd like in as few words/keywords as possible:** Hogwarts war, Voldemort is winning, Hermione is gifted to Draco, Blaise and Theodore who rape her. She eventually falls for Draco and discovers she's pregnant, but doesn't know with who

**Dealbreakers (absolute no-no's):** - none


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